dragged him through the long hall and down a short passageway to the cellar door. This he opened, thrust Clematis upon the other side of it, closed and bolted it.
Immediately a stentorian howl raised blood- curdling echoes and resounded horribly through the house. It was obvious that Clematis
intended to make a scene, whether he was present at it or not. He lifted his voice in sonorous dolor, stating that he did not like the cellar and would continue thus to protest as long as he was left in it alone. He added that he was anxious to see Flopit and considered it an unexampled outrage that he was withheld from the opportunity.
Smitten with horror, William reopened the door and charged down the cellar stairs after Clematis, who closed his caitiff mouth and gave way precipitately. He fled from one end of the cellar to the other and back, while William pursued; choking, and calling in low, ferocious tones: “Good doggie! Good ole doggie! Hyuh, Clem! Meat, Clem, meat–”
There was dodging through coal-bins; there was squirming between barrels; there was high jumping and broad jumping, and there was a final aspiring but baffled dash for the top of the cellar stairs, where the door, forgotten by William, stood open. but it was here that Clematis, after a long and admirable exhibition of ingenuity, no less than agility, submitted to capture. That is to say, finding himself hopelessly pinioned, he resumed the stoic.
Grimly the panting and dripping William dragged him through the kitchen, where the cook cried out unintelligibly, seeming to summon Adelia, who was not present. Through the back yard went captor and prisoner, the latter now maintaining a seated posture–his pathetic conception of dignity under duress. Finally, into a small shed or tool-house, behind Mrs. Baxter’s flower-beds, went Clematis in a hurried and spasmodic manner. The instant the door slammed he lifted his voice–and was bidden to use it now as much as he liked.
Adelia, with a tray of used plates, encountered the son of the house as he passed through the kitchen on his return, and her eyes were those of one who looks upon miracles.
William halted fiercely.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded. “Is my face dirty?”
“You mean, are it too dirty to go in yonduh to the party?” Adelia asked, slowly. “No, suh; you look all right to go in there. You lookin’ jes’ fine to go in there now, Mist’ Willie!”
Something in her tone struck him as peculiar, even as ominous, but his blood was up–he would not turn back now. He strode into the hall and opened the door of the “living-room.”
Jane was sitting on the floor, busily painting sunsets in a large blank-book which she had obtained for that exclusive purpose.
She looked up brightly as William appeared in the doorway, and in answer to his wild gaze she said:
“I got a little bit sick, so mamma told me to keep quiet a while. She’s lookin’ for you all over the house. She told papa she don’t know what in mercy’s name people are goin’ to think about you, Willie.”
The distraught youth strode to her. “The party–” he choked. “WHERE–”
“They all stayed pretty long,” said Jane, “but the last ones said they had to go home to their dinners when papa came, a little while ago. Johnnie Watson was carryin’ Flopit for that Miss Pratt.”
William dropped into the chair beside which Jane had established herself upon the floor. Then he uttered a terrible cry and rose.
Again Jane had painted a sunset she had not intended.
XV
ROMANCE OF STATISTICS
On a warm morning, ten days later, William stood pensively among his mother’s flower- beds behind the house, his attitude denoting a low state of vitality. Not far away, an aged negro sat upon a wheelbarrow in the hot sun, tremulously yet skilfully whittling a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, labor more to his taste, evidently, than that which he had abandoned at the request of Jane. Allusion to this preference for a lighter task was made by Genesis, who was erecting a trellis on the border of the little garden.
“Pappy whittle all day,” he chuckled. “Whittle all night, too! Pappy, I thought you ‘uz goin’ to git ‘at long bed all spade’ up fer me by noon. Ain’t ‘at what you tole me?”
“You let him alone, Genesis,” said Jane, who sat by the old man’s side, deeply fascinated. “There’s goin’ to be a great deal of rain in the next few days. maybe, an’ I haf to have this boat ready.”
The aged darky lifted his streaky and diminished eyes to the burnished sky, and laughed. “Rain come some day, anyways,” he said. “We git de boat ready ‘fo’ she fall, dat sho.” His glance wandered to William and rested upon him with feeble curiosity. “Dat ain’ yo’ pappy, is it?” he asked Jane.
“I should say it isn’t!” she exclaimed. “It’s Willie. He was only seventeen about two or three months ago, Mr. Genesis.” This was not the old man’s name, but Jane had evolved it, inspired by respect for one so aged and so kind about whittling. He was the father of Genesis, and the latter, neither to her knowledge nor to her imagination, possessed a surname.
“I got cat’rack in my lef’ eye,” said Mr. Genesis, “an’ de right one, she kine o’ tricksy, too. Tell black man f’um white man, little f’um big.”
“I’d hate it if he was papa,” said Jane, confidentially. “He’s always cross about somep’m, because he’s in love.” She approached her mouth to her whittling friend’s ear and continued in a whisper: “He’s in love of Miss Pratt. She’s out walkin’ with Joe Bullitt. I was in the front yard with Willie, an’ we saw ’em go by. He’s mad.”
William did not hear her. Moodily, he had discovered that there was something amiss with the buckle of his belt, and, having ungirded himself, he was biting the metal tongue of the buckle in order to straighten it. This fell under the observation of Genesis, who remonstrated.
“You break you’ teef on ‘at buckle,” he said.
“No, I won’t, either,” William returned, crossly.
“Ain’ my teef,” said Genesis. “Break ’em, you want to!”
The attention of Mr. Genesis did not seem to be attracted to the speakers; he continued his whittling in a craftsman-like manner, which brought praise from Jane.
“You can see to whittle, Mr. Genesis,” she said. “You whittle better than anybody in the world.”
“I speck so, mebbe,” Mr. Genesis returned, with a little complacency. “How ole yo’ pappy?”
“Oh, he’s OLD!” Jane explained.
William deigned to correct her. “He’s not old, he’s middle-aged.”
“Well, suh,” said Mr. Genesis, “I had three chillum ‘fo’ I ‘uz twenty. I had two when I ‘uz eighteem.”
William showed sudden interest. “You did!” he exclaimed. “How old were you when you had the first one?”
“I ‘uz jes’ yo’ age,” said the old man. “I ‘uz seventeem.”
“By George!” cried William.
Jane seemed much less impressed than William, seventeen being a long way from ten,
though, of course, to seventeen itself hardly any information could be imagined as more interesting than that conveyed by the words of the aged Mr. Genesis. The impression made upon William was obviously profound and favorable.
“By George!” he cried again.
“Genesis he de youngis’ one,” said the old man. “Genesis he ‘uz bawn when I ‘uz sixty-one.”
William moved closer. “What became of the one that was born when you were seventeen?” he asked.
“Well, suh,” said Mr. Genesis, “I nev’ did know.”
At this, Jane’s interest equaled William’s. Her eyes consented to leave the busy hands of the aged darky, and, much enlarged, rose to his face. After a little pause of awe and sympathy she inquired:
“Was it a boy or a girl?”
The old man deliberated within himself. “Seem like it mus’ been a boy.”
“Did it die?” Jane asked, softly.
“I reckon it mus’ be dead by now,” he returned, musingly. “Good many of ’em dead: what I KNOWS is dead. Yes’m, I reckon so.”
“How old were you when you were married?” William asked, with a manner of peculiar earnestness;–it was the manner of one who addresses a colleague.
“Me? Well, suh, dat ‘pen’s.” He seemed to search his memory. “I rickalect I ‘uz ma’ied once in Looavle,” he said.
Jane’s interest still followed the first child. “Was that where it was born, Mr. Genesis?” she asked.
He looked puzzled, and paused in his whittling to rub his deeply corrugated forehead. “Well, suh, mus’ been some bawn in Looavle. Genesis,” he called to his industrious son, “whaih ‘uz YOU bawn?”
“Right ‘n ‘is town,” laughed Genesis. “You fergit a good deal, pappy, but I notice you don’ fergit come to meals!”
The old man grunted, resuming his whittling busily. “Hain’ much use,” he complained. “Cain’ eat nuff’m ‘lessen it all gruelly. Man cain’ eat nuff’m ‘lessen he got teef. Genesis, di’n’ I hyuh you tellin’ dis white gemmun take caih his teef–not bite on no i’on?”
William smiled in pity. “I don’t need to bother about that, I guess,” he said. “I can crack nuts with my teeth.”
“Yes, suh,” said the old man. “You kin now. Ev’y nut you crac’ now goin’ cos’ you a yell when you git ‘long ’bout fawty an’ fifty. You crack nuts now an’ you’ll holler den!”
“Well, I guess I won’t worry myself much now about what won’t happen till I’m forty or fifty,” said William. “My teeth ‘ll last MY time, I guess.”
That brought a chuckle from Mr. Genesis. “Jes’ listen!” he exclaimed. “Young man think he ain’ nev’ goin’ be ole man. Else he think, `Dat ole man what I’m goin’ to be, dat ain’ goin’ be me ‘tall–dat goin’ be somebody else! What I caih ’bout dat ole man? I ain’t a-goin’ take caih o’ no teef fer HIM!’ Yes, suh, an’ den when he GIT to be ole man, he say, `What become o’ dat young man I yoosta be? Where is dat young man agone to? He ‘uz a fool, dat’s what –an’ _I_ ain’ no fool, so he mus’ been somebody else, not me; but I do jes’ wish I had him hyuh ’bout two minutes–long enough to lam him fer not takin’ caih o’ my teef fer me!’ Yes, suh!”
William laughed; his good humor was restored and he found the conversation of Mr. Genesis attractive. He seated himself upon an upturned bucket near the wheelbarrow, and reverted to a former theme. “Well, I HAVE heard of people getting married even younger ‘n you were,” he said. “You take India, for instance. Why, they get married in India when they’re twelve, and even seven and eight years old.”
“They do not!” said Jane, promptly. “Their mothers and fathers wouldn’t let ’em, an’ they wouldn’t want to, anyway.”
“I suppose you been to India and know all about it!” William retorted. “For the matter o’ that, there was a young couple got married in Pennsylvania the other day; the girl was only fifteen, and the man was sixteen. It was in the papers, and their parents consented, and said it was a good thing. Then there was a case in Fall River, Massachusetts, where a young man eighteen years old married a woman forty-one years old; it was in the papers, too. And I heard of another case somewhere in Iowa–a boy began shaving when he was thirteen, and shaved every day for four years, and now he’s got a full beard, and he’s goin’ to get married this year– before he’s eighteen years old. Joe Bullitt’s got a cousin in Iowa that knows about this case–he knows the girl this fellow with the beard is goin’ to marry, and he says he expects it ‘ll turn out the best thing could have happened. They’re goin’ to live on a farm. There’s hunderds of cases like that, only you don’t hear of more’n just a few of ’em. People used to get married at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen–anywhere in there –and never think anything of it at all. Right up to about a hunderd years ago there were more people married at those ages than there were along about twenty-four and twenty-five, the way they are now. For instance, you take Shakespeare–”
William paused.
Mr. Genesis was scraping the hull of the miniature boat with a piece of broken glass, in lieu of sandpaper, but he seemed to be following his young friend’s remarks with attention. William had mentioned Shakespeare impulsively, in the ardor of demonstrating his point; however, upon second thought he decided to withdraw the name.
“I mean, you take the olden times,” he went on; “hardly anybody got married after they were nineteen or twenty years old, unless they were widowers, because they were all married by that time. And right here in our own county, there were eleven couples married in the last six months under twenty-one years of age. I’ve got a friend named Johnnie Watson; his uncle works down at the court-house and told him about it, so it can’t be denied. Then there was a case I heard of over in–”
Mr. Genesis uttered a loud chuckle. “My goo’ness!” he exclaimed. “How you c’leck all’ dem fac’s? Lan’ name! What puzzlin’ ME is how you ‘member ’em after you done c’leck ’em. Ef it uz me I couldn’t c’leck ’em in de firs’ place, an’ ef I could, dey wouldn’ be no use to me, ’cause I couldn’t rickalect ’em!”
“Well, it isn’t so hard,” said William, “if you kind of get the hang of it.” Obviously pleased, he plucked a spear of grass and placed it between his teeth, adding, “I always did have a pretty good memory.”
“Mamma says you’re the most forgetful boy she ever heard of,” said Jane, calmly. “She says you can’t remember anything two minutes.”
William’s brow darkened. “Now look here–” he began, with severity.
But the old darky intervened. “Some folks got good rickaleckshum an’ some folks got bad,” he said, pacifically. “Young white germmun rickalect mo’ in two minute dan what I kin in two years!”
Jane appeared to accept this as settlement of the point at issue, while William bestowed upon Mr. Genesis a glance of increased favor. William’s expression was pleasant to see; in fact, it was the pleasantest expression Jane had seen him wearing for several days. Almost always, lately, he was profoundly preoccupied, and so easily annoyed that there was no need to be careful of his feelings, because–as his mother observed–he was “certain to break out about every so often, no matter what happened!”
“I remember pretty much everything,” he said, as if in modest explanation of the performance which had excited the aged man’s admira- tion. “I can remember things that happened when I was four years old.”
“So can I,” said Jane. “I can remember when I was two. I had a kitten fell down the cistern and papa said it hurt the water.”
“My goo’ness!” Mr. Genesis exclaimed. “An’ you ‘uz on’y two year ole, honey! Bes’ _I_ kin do is rickalect when I ‘uz ’bout fifty.”
“Oh no!” Jane protested. “You said you remembered havin’ a baby when you were seventeen, Mr. Genesis.”
“Yes’m,” he admitted. “I mean rickalect good like you do ’bout yo’ li’l’ cat an’ all how yo’ pappy tuck on ’bout it. I kin rickalect SOME, but I cain’ rickalect GOOD.”
William coughed with a certain importance. “Do you remember,” he asked, “when you were married, how did you feel about it? Were you kind of nervous, or anything like that, before- hand?”
Mr. Genesis again passed a wavering hand across his troubled brow.
“I mean,” said William, observing his perplexity, “were you sort of shaky–f’rinstance, as if you were taking an important step in life?”
“Lemme see.” The old man pondered for a moment. “I felt mighty shaky once, I rickalect; dat time yalla m’latta man shootin’ at me f ‘um behime a snake-fence.”
“Shootin’ at you!” Jane cried, stirred from her accustomed placidity. “Mr. Genesis! What DID he do that for?”
“Nuff’m!” replied Mr. Genesis, with feeling. “Nuff’m in de wide worl’! He boun’ to shoot SOMEbody, an’ pick on me ’cause I ‘uz de handies’.”
He closed his knife, gave the little boat a final scrape with the broken glass, and then a soothing rub with the palm of his hand. “Dah, honey,” he said–and simultaneously factory whistles began to blow. “Dah yo’ li’l’ steamboat good as I kin git her widout no b’iler ner no smoke- stack. I reckon yo’ pappy ‘ll buy ’em fer you.”
Jane was grateful. “It’s a beautiful boat, Mr. Genesis. I do thank you!”
Genesis, the son, laid aside his tools and approached. “Pappy finish whittlin’ spang on ’em noon whistles,” he chuckled. “Come ‘long, pappy. I bet you walk fas’ ’nuff goin’ todes dinnuh. I hear fry-cakes ploppin’ in skillet!”
Mr. Genesis laughed loudly, his son’s words evidently painting a merry and alluring picture; and the two, followed by Clematis, moved away in the direction of the alley gate. William and Jane watched the brisk departure of the antique with sincere esteem and liking.
“He must have been sixteen,” said William, musingly.
“When?” Jane asked.
William, in deep thought, was still looking after Mr. Genesis; he was almost unconscious that he had spoken aloud and he replied, automatically:
“When he was married.”
Then, with a start, he realized into how great a condescension he had been betrayed, and hastily added, with pronounced hauteur, “Things you don’t understand. You run in the house.”
Jane went into the house, but she did not carry her obedience to the point of running. She walked slowly, and in that state of profound reverie which was characteristic of her when she was immersed in the serious study of William’s affairs.
XVI
THE SHOWER
She continued to be thoughtful until after lunch, when, upon the sun’s disappearance behind a fat cloud, Jane and the heavens exchanged dispositions for the time–the heavens darkened and Jane brightened. She was in the front hall, when the sunshine departed rather abruptly, and she jumped for joy, pointing to the open door. “Look! Looky there!” she called to her brother. Richly ornamented, he was descending the front stairs, his embellishments including freshly pressed white trousers, a new straw hat, unusual shoes, and a blasphemous tie. “I’m goin’ to get to sail my boat,” Jane shouted. “It’s goin’ to rain.”
“It is not,” said William, irritated. “It’s not going to anything like rain. I s’pose you think it ought to rain just to let you sail that chunk of wood!”
“It’s goin’ to rain–it’s goin’ to rain!” (Jane made a little singsong chant of it.) “It’s goin’ to rain–it gives Willie a pain–it’s goin’ to rain –it gives Willie a pain–it’s goin’ to–”
He interrupted her sternly. “Look here! You’re old enough to know better. I s’pose you think there isn’t anything as important in the world as your gettin’ the chance to sail that little boat! I s’pose you think business and everything else has got to stop and get ruined, maybe, just to please you!” As he spoke he walked to an umbrella-stand in the hall and deliberately took therefrom a bamboo walking-stick of his father’s. Indeed, his denunciation of Jane’s selfishness about the weather was made partly to reassure himself and settle his nerves, strained by the unusual procedure he contemplated, and partly to divert Jane’s attention. In the latter effort he was unsuccessful; her eyes became strange and unbearable.
She uttered a shriek:
“Willie’s goin’ to carry a CANE!”
“You hush up!” he said, fiercely, and hurried out through the front door. She followed him to the edge of the porch; she stood there while he made his way to the gate, and she continued to stand there as he went down the street, trying to swing the cane in an accustomed and unembarrassed manner.
Jane made this difficult.
“Willie’s got a CANE!” she screamed. “He’s got papa’s CANE!” Then, resuming her little chant, she began to sing: “It’s goin’ to rain– Willie’s got papa’s cane–it’s goin’ to rain– Willie’s got papa’s cane!” She put all of her voice into a final effort. “MISS PRATT’LL GET WET IF YOU DON’T TAKE AN UMBERELLER-R-R!”
The attention of several chance pedestrians had been attracted, and the burning William, breaking into an agonized half-trot, disappeared round the corner. Then Jane retired within the house, feeling that she had done her duty. It would be his own fault if he got wet.
Rain was coming. Rain was in the feel of the air–and in Jane’s hope.
She was not disappointed. Mr. Genesis, so secure of fair weather in the morning, was proved by the afternoon to be a bad prophet. The fat cloud was succeeded by others, fatter; a corpulent army assailed the vault of heaven, heavy outriders before a giant of evil complexion and devastating temper.
An hour after William had left the house, the dust in the streets and all loose paper and rubbish outdoors rose suddenly to a considerable height and started for somewhere else. The trees had colic; everything became as dark as winter twilight; streaks of wildfire ran miles in a second, and somebody seemed to be ripping up sheets of copper and tin the size of farms. The rain came with a swish, then with a rattle, and then with a roar, while people listened at their garret doorways and marveled. Window-panes turned to running water;–it poured.
Then it relented, dribbled, shook down a few last drops; and passed on to the countryside. Windows went up; eaves and full gutters plashed and gurgled; clearer light fell; then, in a moment, sunshine rushed upon shining green trees and green grass; doors opened–and out came the children!
Shouting, they ran to the flooded gutters. Here were rivers, lakes, and oceans for navigation; easy pilotage, for the steersman had but to wade beside his craft and guide it with a twig. Jane’s timely boat was one of the first to reach the water.
Her mother had been kind, and Jane, with shoes and stockings left behind her on the porch, was a happy sailor as she waded knee-deep along the brimming curbstones. At the corner below the house of the Baxters, the street was flooded clear across, and Jane’s boat, following the current, proceeded gallantly onward here, sailed down the next block, and was thoughtlessly entering a sewer when she snatched it out of the water. Looking about her, she perceived a gutter which seemed even lovelier than the one she had followed. It was deeper and broader and perhaps a little browner, wherefore she launched her ship upon its dimpled bosom and explored it as far as the next sewer-hole or portage. Thus the voyage continued for several blocks with only one accident–which might have happened to anybody. It was an accident in the nature of a fall, caused by the sliding of Jane’s left foot on some slippery mud. This treacherous substance, covered with water, could not have been anticipated; consequently Jane’s emotions were those of indignation rather than of culpability. Upon rising, she debated whether or not
she should return to her dwelling, inclining to the opinion that the authorities there would have taken the affirmative; but as she was wet not much above the waist, and the guilt lay all upon the mud, she decided that such an interruption of her journey would be a gross injustice to herself. Navigation was reopened.
Presently the boat wandered into a miniature whirlpool, grooved in a spiral and pleasant to see. Slowly the water went round and round, and so did the boat without any assistance from Jane. Watching this movement thoughtfully, she brought forth from her drenched pocket some sodden whitish disks, recognizable as having been crackers, and began to eat them. Thus absorbed, she failed at first to notice the approach of two young people along the sidewalk.
They were the entranced William and Miss Pratt; and their appearance offered a suggestive contrast in relative humidity. In charming and tender-colored fabrics, fluffy and cool and summery, she was specklessly dry; not a drop had
touched even the little pink parasol over her shoulder, not one had fallen upon the tiny white doglet drowsing upon her arm. But William was wet–he was still more than merely damp, though they had evidently walked some distance since the rain had ceased to fall. His new hat was a mucilaginous ruin; his dank coat sagged; his shapeless trousers flopped heavily, and his shoes gave forth marshy sounds as he walked.
No brilliant analyst was needed to diagnose this case. Surely any observer must have said: “Here is a dry young lady, and at her side walks a wet young gentleman who carries an umbrella in one hand and a walking-stick in the other. Obviously the young lady and gentleman were out for a stroll for which the stick was sufficient, and they were caught by the rain. Before any fell, however, he found her a place of shelter–such as a corner drug-store and then himself gallantly went forth into the storm for an umbrella. He went to the young lady’s house, or to the house where she may be visiting, for, if he had gone to his own he would have left his stick. It may be, too, that at his own, his mother would have detained him, since he is still at the age when it is just possible sometimes for mothers to get their sons into the house when it rains. He returned with the umbrella to the corner drug-store at probably about the time when the rain ceased to fall, because his extreme moistness makes necessary the deduction that he was out in all the rain that rained. But he does not seem to care.”
The fact was that William did not even know that he was wet. With his head sidewise and his entranced eyes continuously upon the pretty face so near, his state was almost somnambulistic. Not conscious of his soggy garments or of the deluged streets, he floated upon a rosy cloud, incense about him, far-away music enchanting his ears.
If Jane had not recognized the modeling of his features she might not have known them to be William’s, for they had altered their grouping to produce an expression with which she was totally unfamiliar. To be explicit, she was unfamiliar with this expression in that place– that is to say, upon William, though she had seen something like it upon other people, once or twice, in church.
William’s thoughts might have seemed to her as queer as his expression, could she have known them. They were not very definite, however, taking the form of sweet, vague pictures of the future. These pictures were of married life; that is, married life as William conceived it for himself and Miss Pratt–something strikingly different from that he had observed as led by his
mother and father, or their friends and relatives. In his rapt mind he beheld Miss Pratt walking beside him “through life,” with her little parasol and her little dog–her exquisite face always lifted playfully toward his own (with admiration underneath the playfulness), and he heard her voice of silver always rippling “baby-talk” throughout all the years to come. He saw her applauding his triumphs–though these remained indefinite in his mind, and he was unable to foreshadow the business or profession which was to provide the amazing mansion (mainly conservatory) which he pictured as their home. Surrounded by flowers, and maintaining a private orchestra, he saw Miss Pratt and himself growing old together, attaining to such ages as thirty and even thirty-five, still in perfect harmony, and always either dancing in the evenings or strolling hand in hand in the moonlight. Sometimes they would visit the nursery, where curly-headed, rosy cherubs played upon a white- bear rug in the firelight. These were all boys and ready-made, the youngest being three years old and without a past.
They would be beautiful children, happy with their luxurious toys on the bear rug, and they would NEVER be seen in any part of the house except the nursery. Their deportment would be flawless, and–
“WILL-EE!”
The aviator struck a hole in the air; his heart misgave him. Then he came to earth–a sickening drop, and instantaneous.
“WILL-EE!”
There was Jane, a figurine in a plastic state and altogether disgraceful;–she came up out of the waters and stood before them with feet of clay, indeed; pedestaled upon the curbstone.
“Who IS that CURIOUS child?” said Miss Pratt, stopping.
William shuddered.
“Was she calling YOU?” Miss Pratt asked, incredulously.
“Willie, I told you you better take an umbereller,” said Jane, “instead of papa’s cane.” And she added, triumphantly, “Now you see!”
Moving forward, she seemed to have in mind a dreadful purpose; there was something about her that made William think she intended casually to accompany him and Miss Pratt.
“You go home!” he commanded, hoarsely.
Miss Pratt uttered a little scream of surprise and recognition. “It’s your little sister!” she exclaimed, and then, reverting to her favorite playfulness of enunciation, “ ‘Oor ickle sissa!” she added, gaily, as a translation. Jane misunderstood it; she thought Miss Pratt meant “OUR little sister.”
“Go home!” said William.
“No’ty, no’ty!” said Miss Pratt, shaking her head. “Me ‘fraid oo’s a no’ty, no’ty ickle dirl! All datie!”
Jane advanced. “I wish you’d let me carry Flopit for you,” she said.
Giving forth another gentle scream, Miss Pratt hopped prettily backward from Jane’s extended hands. “Oo-oo!” she cried, chidingly. “Mustn’t touch! P’eshus Flopit all soap-water-wash clean. Ickle dirly all muddy-nassy! Ickle dirly must doe home, det all soap-water-wash clean like NICE ickle sissa. Evabody will love ‘oor ickle sissa den,” she concluded, turning to William. “Tell ‘oor ickle sissa MUS’ doe home det soap-water-wash!”
Jane stared at Miss Pratt with fixed solemnity during the delivery of these admonitions, and it was to be seen that they made an impression upon her. Her mouth slowly opened, but she spake not. An extraordinary idea had just begun to make itself at home in her mind. It was an idea which had been hovering in the neighborhood of that domain ever since William’s comments upon the conversation of Mr. Genesis, in the morning.
“Go home!” repeated William, and then, as Jane stood motionless and inarticulate, transfixed by her idea, he said, almost brokenly, to his dainty companion, “I DON’T know what you’ll think of my mother! To let this child–”
Miss Pratt laughed comfortingly as they started on again. “Isn’t mamma’s fault, foolish boy Baxter. Ickle dirlies will det datie!”
The profoundly mortified William glanced back over his shoulder, bestowing upon Jane a look in which bitterness was mingled with apprehension. But she remained where she was, and did not follow. That was a little to be thankful for, and he found some additional consolation in believing that Miss Pratt had not caught the frightful words, “papa’s cane,” at the beginning of the interview. He was encouraged to this belief by her presently taking from his hand the decoration in question and examining it with tokens of pleasure. “ ‘Oor pitty walk’-‘tick,” she called it, with a tact he failed to suspect. And so he began to float upward again; glamors enveloped him and the earth fell away.
He was alone in space with Miss Pratt once more.
XVII
JANE’S THEORY
The pale end of sunset was framed in the dining-room windows, and Mr. and Mrs. Baxter and the rehabilitated Jane were at the table, when William made his belated return from the afternoon’s excursion. Seating himself, he waived his mother’s references to the rain, his clothes, and probable colds, and after one laden glance at Jane denoting a grievance so elaborate that he despaired of setting it forth in a formal complaint to the Powers–he fell into a state of trance. He took nourishment automatically, and roused himself but once during the meal, a pathetic encounter with his father resulting from this awakening.
“Everybody in town seemed to be on the streets, this evening, as I walked home,” Mr. Baxter remarked, addressing his wife. “I suppose there’s something in the clean air after a rain that brings ’em out. I noticed one thing, though; maybe it’s the way they dress nowadays, but you certainly don’t see as many pretty girls on the streets as there used to be.”
William looked up absently. “I used to think that, too,” he said, with dreamy condescension, “when I was younger.”
Mr. Baxter stared.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” he said.
“Papa, papa!” his wife called, reprovingly.
“When you were younger!” Mr. Baxter repeated, with considerable irritation. “How old
d’ you think you are?”
“I’m going on eighteen,” said William, firmly. “I know plenty of cases–cases where–” He paused, relapsing into lethargy.
“What’s the matter with him?” Mr. Baxter inquired, heatedly, of his wife.
William again came to life. “I was saying that a person’s age is different according to circumstances,” he explained, with dignity, if not lucidity. “You take Genesis’s father. Well, he was married when he was sixteen. Then there was a case over in Iowa that lots of people know about and nobody thinks anything of. A young man over there in Iowa that’s seventeen years old began shaving when he was thirteen and shaved every day for four years, and now–”
He was interrupted by his father, who was no longer able to contain himself. “And now I suppose he’s got WHISKERS!” he burst forth. “There’s an ambition for you! My soul!”
It was Jane who took up the tale. She had been listening with growing excitement, her eyes fixed piercingly upon William. “He’s got a beard!” she cried, alluding not to her brother, but to the fabled Iowan. “I heard Willie tell ole Mr. Genesis about it.”
“It seems to lie heavily on your mind,” Mr. Baxter said to William. “I suppose you feel that in the face of such an example, your life between the ages of thirteen and seventeen has been virtually thrown away?”
William had again relapsed, but he roused himself feebly. “Sir?” he said.
“What IS the matter with him?” Mr. Baxter demanded. “Half the time lately he seems to be hibernating, and only responds by a slight twitching when poked with a stick. The other half of the time he either behaves like I-don’t-know- what or talks about children growing whiskers in Iowa! Hasn’t that girl left town yet?”
William was not so deep in trance that this failed to stir him. He left the table.
Mrs. Baxter looked distressed, though, as the meal was about concluded, and William had partaken of his share in spite of his dreaminess, she had no anxieties connected with his sustenance. As for Mr. Baxter, he felt a little remorse, undoubtedly, but he was also puzzled. So plain a man was he that he had no perception of the callous brutality of the words “THAT GIRL” when applied to some girls. He referred to his mystification a little later, as he sat with his evening paper in the library.
“I don’t know what I said to that tetchy boy to hurt him,” he began in an apologetic tone. “I don’t see that there was anything too rough for him to stand in a little sarcasm. He needn’t be so sensitive on the subject of whiskers, it seems to me.”
Mrs. Baxter smiled faintly and shook her head.
It was Jane who responded. She was seated upon the floor, disporting herself mildly with her paint-box. “Papa, I know what’s the matter with Willie,” she said.
“Do you?” Mr. Baxter returned. “Well, if you make it pretty short, you’ve got just about long enough to tell us before your bedtime.”
“I think he’s married,” said Jane.
“What!” And her parents united their hilarity.
“I do think he’s married,” Jane insisted, unmoved. “I think he’s married with that Miss Pratt.”
“Well,” said her father, “he does seem upset, and it may be that her visit and the idea of whiskers, coming so close together, is more than mere coincidence, but I hardly think Willie is married, Jane!”
“Well, then,” she returned, thoughtfully, “he’s almost married. I know that much, anyway.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Well, because! I KIND of thought he must be married, or anyways somep’m, when he talked to Mr. Genesis this mornin’. He said he knew how some people got married in Pennsylvania an’ India, an’ he said they were only seven or eight years old. He said so, an’ I heard him; an’ he said there were eleven people married that were only seventeen, an’ this boy in Iowa got a full beard an’ got married, too. An’ he said Mr. Genesis was only sixteen when HE was married. He talked all about gettin’ married when you’re seventeen years old, an’ he said how people thought it was the best thing could happen. So I just KNOW he’s almost married!”
Mr. Baxter chuckled, and Mrs. Baxter smiled, but a shade of thoughtfulness, a remote anxiety, tell upon the face of the latter.
“You haven’t any other reason, have you, Jane?” she asked.
“Yes’m,” said Jane, promptly. “An’ it’s a more reason than any! Miss Pratt calls you `mamma’ as if you were HER mamma. She does it when she talks to Willie.”
“Jane!”
“Yes m, I HEARD her. An’ Willie said, `I don’t know what you’ll think about mother.’ He said, `I don’t know what you’ll think about mother,’ to Miss Pratt.”
Mrs. Baxter looked a little startled, and her husband frowned. Jane mistook their expressions for incredulity. “They DID, mamma,” she protested. “That’s just the way they talked to each other. I heard ’em this afternoon, when Willie had papa’s cane.”
“Maybe they were doing it to tease you, if you were with them,” Mr. Baxter suggested.
“I wasn’t with ’em. I was sailin’ my boat, an’ they came along, an’ first they never saw me, an’ Willie looked–oh, papa, I wish you’d seen him!” Jane rose to her feet in her excitement. “His face was so funny, you never saw anything like it! He was walkin’ along with it turned sideways, an’ all the time he kept walkin’ frontways, he kept his face sideways–like this, papa. Look, papa!” And she gave what she considered a faithful imitation of William walking with Miss Pratt. “Look, papa! This is the way Willie went. He had it sideways so’s he could see Miss. Pratt, papa. An’ his face was just like this. Look, papa!” She contorted her features in a terrifying manner. “Look, papa!”
“Don’t, Jane!” her mother exclaimed.
“Well, I haf to show papa how Willie looked, don’t I?” said Jane, relaxing. “That’s just the way he looked. Well, an’ then they stopped an’ talked to me, an’ Miss Pratt said, `It’s our little sister.’ ”
“Did she really?” Mrs. Baxter asked, gravely,
“Yes’m, she did. Soon as she saw who I was, she said, `Why, it’s our little sister!’ Only she said it that way she talks–sort of foolish. `It’s our ittle sissy’–somep’m like that, mamma. She said it twice an’ told me to go home an’ get washed up. An’ Miss Pratt told Willie–Miss Pratt said, `It isn’t mamma’s fault Jane’s so dirty,’ just like that. She–”
“Are you sure she said `our little sister’?” said Mrs. Baxter.
“Why, you can ask Willie! She said it that funny way. `Our ‘ittle sissy’; that’s what she said. An’ Miss Pratt said, `Ev’rybody would love our little sister if mamma washed her in soap an’ water!’ You can ask Willie; that’s exackly what Miss Pratt said, an’ if you don’t believe it you can ask HER. If you don’t want to believe it, why, you can ask–”
“Hush, dear,” said Mrs. Baxter. “All this doesn’t mean anything at all, especially such nonsense as Willie’s thinking of being married. It’s your bedtime.”
“Well, but MAMMA–”
“Was that all they said?” Mr. Baxter inquired.
Jane turned to him eagerly. “They said all lots of things like that, papa. They–”
“Nonsense!” Mrs. Baxter in interrupted. “Come, it’s bedtime. I’ll go up with you. You mustn’t think such nonsense.”
“But, mamma–”
“Come along, Jane!”
Jane was obedient in the flesh, but her spirit was free; her opinions were her own. Disappointed in the sensation she had expected to
produce, she followed her mother out of the room wearing the expression of a person who says, “You’ll SEE–some day when everything’s ruined!”
Mr. Baxter, left alone, laughed quietly, lifted his neglected newspaper to obtain the light at the right angle, and then allowed it to languish upon his lap again. Frowning, he began to tap the floor with his shoe.
He was trying to remember what things were in his head when he was seventeen, and it was difficult. It seemed to him that he had been a steady, sensible young fellow–really quite a man –at that age. Looking backward at the blur of youthful years, the period from sixteen to twenty- five appeared to him as “pretty much all of a piece.” He could not recall just when he stopped being a boy; it must have been at about fifteen, he thought.
All at once he sat up stiffly in his chair, and the paper slid from his knee. He remembered an autumn, long ago, when he had decided to abandon the educational plans of his parents and become an actor. He had located this project exactly, for it dated from the night of his seventeenth birthday, when he saw John McCullough play “Virginius.”
Even now Mr. Baxter grew a little red as he remembered the remarkable letter he had written, a few weeks later, to the manager of a passing theatrical company. He had confidently
expected an answer, and had made his plans to leave town quietly with the company and afterward reassure his parents by telegraph. In fact, he might have been on the stage at this moment, if that manager had taken him. Mr. Baxter began to look nervous.
Still, there is a difference between going on the stage and getting married. “I don’t know, though!” Mr. Baxter thought. “And Willie’s certainly not so well balanced in a GENERAL way as I was.” He wished his wife would come down and reassure him, though of course it was all nonsense.
But when Mrs. Baxter came down-stairs she did not reassure him. “Of course Jane’s too absurd!” she said. “I don’t mean that she `made it up’; she never does that, and no doubt this little Miss Pratt did say about what Jane thought she said. But it all amounts to nothing.”
“Of course!”
“Willie’s just going through what several of the other boys about his age are going through– like Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and Wallace Banks. They all seem to be frantic over her.”
“I caught a glimpse of her the day you had her to tea. She’s rather pretty.”
“Adorably! And perhaps Willie has been just a LITTLE bit more frantic than the others.”
“He certainly seems in a queer state!”
At this his wife’s tone became serious. “Do you think he WOULD do as crazy a thing as that?”
Mr. Baxter laughed. “Well, I don’t know what he’d do it ON! I don’t suppose he has more than a dollar in his possession.”
“Yes, he has,” she returned, quickly. “Day before yesterday there was a second-hand furniture man here, and I was too busy to see him, but I wanted the storeroom in the cellar cleared out, and I told Willie he could have whatever the man would pay him for the junk in there, if he’d watch to see that they didn’t TAKE anything. They found some old pieces that I’d forgotten, underneath things, and altogether the man paid Willie nine dollars and eighty-five cents.”
“But, mercy-me!” exclaimed Mr. Baxter, “the girl may be an idiot, but she wouldn’t run away and marry a boy just barely seventeen on nine dollars and eighty-five cents!”
“Oh no!” said Mrs. Baxter. “At least, I don’t THINK so. Of course girls do as crazy things as boys sometimes–in their way. I was think- ing–” She paused. “Of COURSE there couldn’t be anything in it, but it did seem a little strange.”
“What did?”
“Why, just before I came down-stairs, Adelia came for the laundry; and I asked her if she’d seen Willie; and she said he’d put on his dark suit after dinner, and he went out through the kitchen, carrying his suit-case.”
“He did?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Baxter went on, slowly, “I COULDN’T believe he’d do such a thing, but he really is in a PREPOSTEROUS way over this little Miss Pratt, and he DID have that money–”
“By George!” Mr. Baxter got upon his feet. “The way he talked at dinner, I could come pretty near believing he hasn’t any more brains LEFT than to get married on nine dollars and eighty-five cents! I wouldn’t put it past him! By George, I wouldn’t!”
“Oh, I don’t think he would,” she remonstrated, feebly. “Besides, the law wouldn’t permit it.”
Mr. Baxter paced the floor. “Oh, I suppose they COULD manage it. They could go to some little town and give false ages and–” He broke off. “Adelia was sure he had his suit-case?”
She nodded. “Do you think we’d better go down to the Parchers’? We’d just say we came to call, of course, and if–”
“Get your hat on,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything in it at all, but we’d just as well drop down there. It can’t HURT anything.”
“Of course, I don’t think–” she began.
“Neither do I,” he interrupted, irascibly. “But with a boy of his age crazy enough to think he’s in love, how do WE know what ‘ll happen? We’re only his parents! Get your hat on.”
But when the uneasy couple found themselves upon the pavement before the house of the Parchers, they paused under the shade-trees in the darkness, and presently decided that it was not necessary to go in. Suddenly their uneasiness had fallen from them. From the porch came the laughter of several young voices, and then one silvery voice, which pretended to be that of a tiny child.
“Oh, s’ame! S’ame on ‘oo, big Bruvva Josie- Joe! Mus’ be polite to Johnny Jump-up, or tant play wiv May and Lola!”
“That’s Miss Pratt,” whispered Mrs. Baxter. “She’s talking to Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and May Parcher. Let’s go home; it’s all right. Of course I knew it would be.”
“Why, certainly,” said Mr. Baxter, as they turned. “Even if Willie were as crazy as that, the little girl would have more sense. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, if you hadn’t told me about the suit-case. That looked sort of queer.”
She agreed that it did, but immediately added that she had thought nothing of it. What had seemed more significant to her was William’s interest in the early marriage of Genesis’s father, and in the Iowa beard story, she said. Then she said that it WAS curious about the suit-case.
And when they came to their own house again, there was William sitting alone and silent upon the steps of the porch.
“I thought you’d gone out, Willie,” said his mother, as they paused beside him.
“Ma’am?”
“Adelia said you went out, carrying your suit-case.”
“Oh yes,” he said, languidly. “If you leave clothes at Schwartz’s in the evening they have ’em pressed in the morning. You said I looked damp at dinner, so I took ’em over and left ’em there.”
“I see.” Mrs. Baxter followed her husband to the door, but she stopped on the threshold and called back:
“Don’t sit there too long, Willie.”
“Ma’am?”
“The dew is falling and it rained so hard to- day–I’m afraid it might be damp.”
“Ma’am?”
“Come on,” Mr. Baxter said to his wife. “He’s down on the Parchers’ porch, not out in front here. Of course he can’t hear you. It’s three blocks and a half.”
But William’s father was mistaken. Little he knew! William was not upon the porch of the Parchers, with May Parcher and Joe Bullitt and Johnnie Watson to interfere. He was far from there, in a land where time was not. Upon a planet floating in pink mist, and uninhabited– unless old Mr. Genesis and some Hindoo princes and the diligent Iowan may have established themselves in its remoter regions–William was alone with Miss Pratt, in the conservatory. And, after a time, they went together, and looked into the door of a room where an indefinite number of little boys–all over three years of age–were playing in the firelight upon a white-bear rug. For, in the roseate gossamer that boys’ dreams are made of, William had indeed entered the married state.
His condition was growing worse, every day.
XVIII
THE BIG, FAT LUMMOX
In the morning sunshine, Mrs. Baxter stood at the top of the steps of the front porch, addressing her son, who listened impatiently and edged himself a little nearer the gate every time he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Willie,” she said, “you must really pay some attention to the laws of health, or you’ll never live to be an old man.”
“I don’t want to live to be an old man,” said William, earnestly. “I’d rather do what I please now and die a little sooner.”
“You talk very foolishly,” his mother returned. “Either come back and put on some heavier THINGS or take your overcoat.”
“My overcoat!” William groaned. “They’d think I was a lunatic, carrying an overcoat in August!”
“Not to a picnic,” she said.
“Mother, it isn’t a picnic, I’ve told you a hunderd times! You think it’s one those ole- fashion things YOU used to go to–sit on the damp ground and eat sardines with ants all over ’em? This isn’t anything like that; we just go out on the trolley to this farm-house and have noon dinner, and dance all afternoon, and have supper, and then come home on the trolley. I guess we’d hardly of got up anything as out o’ date as a picnic in honor of Miss PRATT!”
Mrs. Baxter seemed unimpressed.
“It doesn’t matter whether you call it a picnic or not, Willie. It will be cool on the open trolley- car coming home, especially with only those white trousers on–”
“Ye gods!” he cried. “I’ve got other things on besides my trousers! I wish you wouldn’t always act as if I was a perfect child! Good heavens! isn’t a person my age supposed to know how much clothes to wear?”
“Well, if he is,” she returned, “it’s a mere supposition and not founded on fact. Don’t get so excited, Willie, please; but you’ll either have to give up the picnic or come in and ch–”
“Change my `things’!” he wailed. “I can’t change my `things’! I’ve got just twenty minutes to get to May Parcher’s–the crowd meets there, and they’re goin’ to take the trolley in front the Parchers’ at exactly a quarter after ‘leven. PLEASE don’t keep me any longer, mother –I GOT to go!”
She stepped into the hall and returned immediately. “Here’s your overcoat, Willie.”
His expression was of despair. “They’ll think I’m a lunatic and they’ll say so before everybody –and I don’t blame ’em! Overcoat on a hot day like this! Except me, I don’t suppose there was ever anybody lived in the world and got to be going on eighteen years old and had to carry his silly old overcoat around with him in August– because his mother made him!”
“Willie,” said Mrs. Baxter, “you don’t know how many thousands and thousands of mothers for thousands and thousands of years have kept their sons from taking thousands and thousands of colds–just this way!”
He moaned. “Well, and I got to be called a lunatic just because you’re nervous, I s’pose. All right!”
She hung it upon his arm, kissed him; and he departed in a desperate manner.
However, having worn his tragic face for three blocks, he halted before a corner drug-store, and permitted his expression to improve as he gazed upon the window display of My Little Sweetheart All-Tobacco Cuban Cigarettes, the Package of Twenty for Ten Cents. William was not a
smoker–that is to say, he had made the usual boyhood experiments, finding them discouraging; and though at times he considered it humorously man-about-town to say to a smoking friend, “Well, _I_’ll tackle one o’ your ole coffin-nails,” he had never made a purchase of tobacco in his life. But it struck him now that it would be rather debonair to disport himself with a package of Little Sweethearts upon the excursion.
And the name! It thrilled him inexpressibly, bringing a tenderness into his eyes and a glow into his bosom. He felt that when he should smoke a Little Sweetheart it would be a tribute to the ineffable visitor for whom this party was being given–it would bring her closer to him. His young brow grew almost stern with determination, for he made up his mind, on the spot,
that he would smoke oftener in the future–he would become a confirmed smoker, and all his life he would smoke My Little Sweetheart All-Tobacco Cuban Cigarettes.
He entered and managed to make his purchase in a matter-of-fact way, as if he were doing something quite unemotional; then he said to the clerk:
“Oh, by the by–ah–”
The clerk stared. “Well, what else?”
“I mean,” said William, hurriedly, “there’s something I wanted to ‘tend to, now I happen to be here. I was on my way to take this overcoat to–to get something altered at the tailor’s for next winter. ‘Course I wouldn’t want it till winter, but I thought I might as well get it DONE.” He paused, laughing carelessly, for greater plaus- ibility. “I thought he’d prob’ly want lots of time on the job–he’s a slow worker, I’ve noticed –and so I decided I might just as well go ahead and let him get at it. Well, so I was on my way there, but I just noticed I only got about six minutes more to get to a mighty important engagement I got this morning, and I’d like to leave it here and come by and get it on my way home, this evening.”
“Sure,” said the clerk. “Hang it on that hook inside the p’scription-counter. There’s one there already, b’longs to your friend, that young Bullitt fella. He was in here awhile ago and said he wanted to leave his because he didn’t have time to take it to be pressed in time for next winter. Then he went on and joined that crowd in Mr. Parcher’s yard, around the corner, that’s goin’ on a trolley-party. I says, `I betcher mother maje carry it,’ and he says, `Oh no. Oh no,’ he says. `Honest, I was goin’ to get it pressed!’ You can hang yours on the same nail.”
The clerk spoke no more, and went to serve another customer, while William stared after him a little uneasily. It seemed that here was a man of suspicious nature, though, of course, Joe Bullitt’s shallow talk about getting an overcoat pressed before winter would not have imposed upon anybody. However, William felt strongly that the private life of the customers of a store should not be pried into and speculated about by employees, and he was conscious of a distaste for this clerk.
Nevertheless, it was with a lighter heart that he left his overcoat behind him and stepped out of the side door of the drug-store. That brought him within sight of the gaily dressed young people, about thirty in number, gathered upon the small lawn beside Mr. Parcher’s house.
Miss Pratt stood among them, in heliotrope and white, Flopit nestling in her arms. She was encircled by girls who were enthusiastically caressing the bored and blinking Flopit; and when William beheld this charming group, his breath became eccentric, his knee-caps became cold and convulsive, his neck became hot, and he broke into a light perspiration.
She saw him! The small blonde head and the delirious little fluffy hat above it shimmered a nod to him. Then his mouth fell unconsciously open, and his eyes grew glassy with the intensity of meaning he put into the silent response he sent across the picket fence and through the interstices of the intervening group. Pressing with his elbow upon the package of cigarettes in his pocket, he murmured, inaudibly, “My Little Sweetheart, always for you!”–a repetition of his vow that, come what might, he would forever remain a loyal smoker of that symbolic brand. In fact, William’s mental condition had never shown one moment’s turn for the better since the fateful day of the distracting visitor’s arrival.
Mr. Johnnie Watson and Mr. Joe Bullitt met him at the gate and offered him hearty greeting. All bickering and dissension among these three had passed. The lady was so wondrous impartial that, as time went on, the sufferers had come to be drawn together, rather than thrust asunder, by their common feeling. It had grown to be a bond uniting them; they were not so much rivals as ardent novices serving a single altar, each worshiping there without visible gain over the other. Each had even come to possess, in the eyes of his two fellows, almost a sacredness as a sharer in the celestial glamor; they were tender one with another. They were in the last stages.
Johnnie Watson had with him to-day a visitor of his own–a vastly overgrown person of eighteen, who, at Johnnie’s beckoning, abandoned a fair companion of the moment and came forward as William entered the gate.
“I want to intradooce you to two of my most int’mut friends, George,” said Johnnie, with the anxious gravity of a person about to do something important and unfamiliar. “Mr. Baxter, let me intradooce my cousin, Mr.Crooper. Mr.Crooper, this is my friend, Mr. Baxter.”
The gentlemen shook hands solemnly, saying,
“’M very glad to meet you,” and Johnnie turned to Joe Bullitt. “Mr. Croo–I mean, Mr. Bullitt, let me intradooce my friend, Mr. Crooper–I mean my cousin, Mr. Crooper. Mr. Crooper is a cousin of mine.”
“Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Crooper,” said Joe. “I suppose you’re a cousin of Johnnie’s, then?”
“Yep,” said Mr. Crooper, becoming more informal. “Johnnie wrote me to come over for this shindig, so I thought I might as well come.” He laughed loudly, and the others laughed with the same heartiness. “Yessir,” he added, “I thought I might as well come, ’cause I’m pretty apt to be on hand if there’s anything doin’!”
“Well, that’s right,” said William, and while they all laughed again, Mr. Crooper struck his cousin a jovial blow upon the back.
“Hi, ole sport!” he cried, “I want to meet that Miss Pratt before we start. The car’ll be along pretty soon, and I got her picked for the girl I’m goin’ to sit by.”
The laughter of William and Joe Bullitt, designed to express cordiality, suddenly became flaccid and died. If Mr. Crooper had been a sensitive person he might have perceived the chilling disapproval in their glances, for they had just begun to be most unfavorably impressed with him. The careless loudness–almost the
notoriety–with which he had uttered Miss Pratt’s name, demanding loosely to be presented to her, regardless of the well-known law that a lady must first express some wish in such matters–these were indications of a coarse nature sure to be more than uncongenial to Miss Pratt. Its presence might make the whole occasion distasteful to her –might spoil her day. Both William and Joe Bullitt began to wonder why on earth Johnnie Watson didn’t have any more sense than to invite such a big, fat lummox of a cousin to the party.
This severe phrase of theirs, almost simultaneous in the two minds, was not wholly a failure as a thumb-nail sketch of Mr. George Crooper. And yet there was the impressiveness of size about him, especially about his legs and chin. At seventeen and eighteen growth is still going on, sometimes in a sporadic way, several parts seeming to have sprouted faster than others. Often the features have not quite settled down together in harmony, a mouth, for instance, appearing to have gained such a lead over the rest of a face, that even a mother may fear it can never be overtaken. Voices, too, often seem misplaced; one hears, outside the door, the bass rumble of a sinister giant, and a mild boy, thin as a cricket, walks in. The contrary was George Crooper’s case; his voice was an unexpected piping tenor, half falsetto and frequently girlish –as surprising as the absurd voice of an elephant.
He had the general outwardness of a vast and lumpy child. His chin had so distanced his other features that his eyes, nose, and brow seemed almost baby-like in comparison, while his mountainous legs were the great part of the rest of
him. He was one of those huge, bottle-shaped boys who are always in motion in spite of their cumbersomeness. His gestures were continuous, though difficult to interpret as bearing upon the subject of his equally continuous conversation; and under all circumstances he kept his conspicuous legs incessantly moving, whether he was
going anywhere or remaining in comparatively one spot.
His expression was pathetically offensive, the result of his bland confidence in the audible opinions of a small town whereof his father was the richest inhabitant–and the one thing about him, even more obvious than his chin, his legs, and his spectacular taste in flannels, was his perfect trust that he was as welcome to every one as he was to his mother. This might some day lead him in the direction of great pain, but on the occasion of the “subscription party” for Miss Pratt it gave him an advantage.
“When do I get to meet that cutie?” he insisted, as Johnnie Watson moved backward from the cousinly arm, which threatened further flailing. “You intradooced me to about seven I
can’t do much FOR, but I want to get the howdy business over with this Miss Pratt, so I and she can get things started. I’m goin’ to keep her busy all day!”
“Well, don’t be in such a hurry,” said Johnnie, uneasily. “You can meet her when we get out in the country–if I get a chance, George.”
“No, sir!” George protested, jovially. “I guess you’re sad birds over in this town, but look out! When I hit a town it don’t take long till they all hear there’s something doin’! You know how I am when I get started, Johnnie!” Here he turned upon William, tucking his fat arm affectionately through William’s thin one. “Hi, sport! Ole Johnnie’s so slow, YOU toddle me over and get me fixed up with this Miss Pratt, and I’ll tell her you’re the real stuff–after we get engaged!”
He was evidently a true cloud-compeller, this horrible George.
XIX
“I DUNNO WHY IT IS”
William extricated his arm, huskily muttering words which were lost in the general
outcry, “Car’s coming!” The young people poured out through the gate, and, as the car stopped, scrambled aboard. For a moment
everything was hurried and confused. William struggled anxiously to push through to Miss Pratt and climb up beside her, but Mr. George Crooper made his way into the crowd in a beaming, though bull-like manner, and a fat back in a purple-and-white “blazer” flattened William’s nose, while ponderous heels damaged William’s toes; he was shoved back, and just managed to clamber upon the foot-board as the car started. The friendly hand of Joe Bullitt pulled him to a seat, and William found himself rubbing his nose and sitting between Joe and Johnnie Watson, directly behind the dashing Crooper and Miss Pratt. Mr. Crooper had already taken Flopit upon his lap.
“Dogs are always crazy ’bout me,” they heard him say, for his high voice was but too audible over all other sounds. “Dogs and chuldren. I dunno why it is, but they always take to me. My name’s George Crooper, Third, Johnnie Watson’s cousin. He was tryin’ to intradooce me
before the car came along, but he never got the chance. I guess as this shindig’s for you, and I’m the only other guest from out o’ town, we’ll have to intradooce ourselves–the two guests of honor, as it were.”
Miss Pratt laughed her silvery laugh, murmured politely, and turned no freezing glance
upon her neighbor. Indeed, it seemed that she was far from regarding him with the distaste anticipated by William and Joe Bullitt. “Flopit look so toot an’ tunnin’,” she was heard to remark. “Flopit look so ‘ittle on dray, big, ‘normous man’s lap.”
Mr. Crooper laughed deprecatingly. “He does look kind of small compared with the good ole man that’s got charge of him, now! Well, I always was a good deal bigger than the fellas I went with. I dunno why it is, but I was always kind of quicker, too, as it were–and the strongest in any crowd I ever got with. I’m kind of muscle- bound, I guess, but I don’t let that interfere with my quickness any. Take me in an automobile, now–I got a racin’-car at home–and I keep my head better than most people do, as it were. I can kind of handle myself better; I dunno why it is. My brains seem to work better than other people’s, that’s all it is. I don’t mean that I got more sense, or anything like that; it’s just the way my brains work; they kind of put me at an advantage, as it were. Well, f’rinstance, if I’d been livin’ here in this town and joined in with the crowd to get up this party, well, it would of been done a good deal diff’rent. I won’t say better, but diff’rent. That’s always the way with me if I go into anything, pretty soon I’m running the whole shebang; I dunno why it is. The other people might try to run it their way for a while, but pretty soon you notice ’em beginning to step out of the way for good ole George. I dunno why it is, but that’s the way it goes. Well, if I’d been running THIS party I’d of had automobiles to go out in, not a trolley-car where you all got to sit together–and I’d of sent over home for my little racer and I’d of taken you out in her myself. I wish I’d of sent for it, anyway. We could of let the rest go out in the trolley, and you and I could of got off by ourselves: I’d like you to see that little car. Well, anyway, I bet you’d of seen something pretty different and a whole lot better if I’d of come over to this town in time to get up this party for you!”
“For US,” Miss Pratt corrected him, sunnily.
“Bofe strangers–party for us two–all bofe!” And she gave him one of her looks.
Mr. Crooper flushed with emotion; he was annexed; he became serious. “Say,” he said, “that’s a mighty smooth hat you got on.” And he touched the fluffy rim of it with his forefinger. His fat shoulders leaned toward her yearningly.
“We’d cert’nly of had a lot better time sizzin’ along in that little racer I got,” he said. “I’d like to had you see how I handle that little car. Girls over home, they say they like to go out with me just to watch the way I handle her; they say it ain’t so much just the ride, but more the way I handle that little car. I dunno why it is, but that’s what they say. That’s the way I do anything I make up my mind to tackle, though. I don’t try to tackle everything–there’s lots o’ things I wouldn’t take enough interest in ’em, as it were–but just lemme make up my mind once, and it’s all off; I dunno why it is. There was a brakeman on the train got kind of fresh: he didn’t know who I was. Well, I just put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him down in his seat like this”–he set his hand upon Miss Pratt’s shoulder. “I didn’t want to hit him, because there was women and chuldren in the car, so I just shoved my face up close to him, like this. `I guess you don’t know how much stock my father’s got in this road,’ I says. Did he wilt? Well, you ought of seen that brakeman when I got through tellin’ him who I was!”
“Nassy ole brateman!” said Miss Pratt, with unfailing sympathy.
Mr. Crooper’s fat hand, as if unconsciously, gave Miss Pratt’s delicate shoulder a little pat in reluctant withdrawal. “Well, that’s the way with me,” he said. “Much as I been around this world, nobody ever tried to put anything over on me and got away with it. They always come out the little end o’ the horn; I dunno why it is. Say, that’s a mighty smooth locket you got on the end o’ that chain, there.” And again stretching forth his hand, in a proprietor-like way, he began to examine the locket.
Three hot hearts, just behind, pulsated hatred toward him; for Johnnie Watson had perceived his error, and his sentiments were now linked to those of Joe Bullitt and William. The unhappiness of these three helpless spectators was the more poignant because not only were they witnesses of the impression of greatness which George Crooper was obviously producing upon Miss Pratt, but they were unable to prevent themselves from being likewise impressed.
They were not analytical; they dumbly accepted George at his own rating, not even being able to charge him with lack of modesty. Did he not always accompany his testimonials to himself with his deprecating falsetto laugh and “I dunno why it is,” an official disclaimer of merit, “as it were”? Here was a formidable candidate, indeed–a traveler, a man of the world, with brains better and quicker than other people’s brains; an athlete, yet knightly–he would not destroy even a brakeman in the presence of women and children–and, finally, most enviable and deadly, the owner and operator of a “little racer”! All this glitter was not far short of overpowering; and yet, though accepting it as fact, the woeful three shared the inconsistent belief that in spite of everything George was nothing but a big, fat lummox. For thus they even rather loudly whispered of him–almost as if hopeful that Miss Pratt, and mayhap George himself, might overhear.
Impotent their seething! The overwhelming Crooper pursued his conquering way. He leaned more and more toward the magnetic girl, his growing tenderness having that effect upon him, and his head inclining so far that his bedewed brow now and then touched the fluffy hat. He was constitutionally restless, but his movements never ended by placing a greater distance between himself and Miss Pratt, though they sometimes discommoded Miss Parcher, who sat at the other side of him–a side of him which appeared to be without consciousness. He played naively with Miss Pratt’s locket and with the filmy border of her collar; he flicked his nose for some time with her little handkerchief, loudly sniffing its scent; and finally he became interested in a ring she wore, removed it, and tried unsuccessfully to place it upon one of his own fingers.
“I’ve worn lots o’ girls’ rings on my watch-fob. I’d let ’em wear mine on a chain or something. I guess they like to do that with me,” he said. “I dunno why it is.”
At this subtle hint the three unfortunates held their breath, and then lost it as the lovely girl acquiesced in the horrible exchange. As for William, life was of no more use to him. Out of the blue heaven of that bright morning’s promise had fallen a pall, draping his soul in black and purple. He had been horror-stricken when first the pudgy finger of George Crooper had touched the fluffy edge of that sacred little hat; then, during George’s subsequent pawings and leanings, William felt that he must either rise and murder or go mad. But when the exchange of rings was accomplished, his spirit broke and even resentment oozed away. For a time there was no room in him for anything except misery.
Dully, William’s eyes watched the fat shoulders hitching and twitching, while the heavy arms flourished in gesture and in further pawings. Again and again were William’s ears afflicted with, “I dunno why it is,” following upon tribute after tribute paid by Mr. Crooper to himself, and received with little cries of admiration and sweet child-words on the part of Miss Pratt. It was a long and accursed ride.
XX
SYDNEY CARTON
At the farm-house where the party were to dine, Miss Pratt with joy discovered a harmonium in the parlor, and, seating herself, with all the girls, Flopit, and Mr. George Crooper gathered around her, she played an accompaniment, while George, in a thin tenor of detestable sweetness, sang “I’m Falling in Love with Some One.”
His performance was rapturously greeted, especially by the accompanist. “Oh, wunnerfulest Untle Georgiecums!” she cried, for that was now the gentleman’s name. “If Johnnie McCormack hear Untle Georgiecums he go shoot umself dead– Bang!” She looked round to where three figures hovered morosely in the rear. “Tum on, sin’ chorus, Big Bruvva Josie-Joe, Johnny Jump-up, an’ Ickle Boy Baxter. All over adain, Untle Georgiecums! Boys an’ dirls all sin’ chorus. Tummence!”
And so the heartrending performance continued until it was stopped by Wallace Banks, the altruistic and perspiring youth who had charge of the subscription-list for the party, and the consequent collection of assessments. This entitled Wallace to look haggard and to act as master of ceremonies. He mounted a chair.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he bellowed, “I want to say–that is–ah–I am requested to announce t that before dinner we’re all supposed to take a walk around the farm and look at things, as this is supposed to be kind of a model farm or supposed to be something like that. There’s a Swedish lady named Anna going to show us around. She’s out in the yard waiting, so please follow her to inspect the farm.”
To inspect a farm was probably the least of William’s desires. He wished only to die in some quiet spot and to have Miss Pratt told about it in words that would show her what she had thrown away. But he followed with the others, in the wake of the Swedish lady named Anna, and as they stood in the cavernous hollow of the great barn he found his condition suddenly improved.
Miss Pratt turned to him unexpectedly and placed Flopit in his arms. “Keep p’eshus Flopit cozy,” she whispered. “Flopit love ole friends best!”
William’s heart leaped, while a joyous warmth spread all over him. And though the execrable lummox immediately propelled Miss Pratt forward– by her elbow–to hear the descriptive
remarks of the Swedish lady named Anna, William’s soul remained uplifted and entranced. She had not said “like”; she had said, “Flopit LOVE ole friends best”! William pressed forward valiantly, and placed himself as close as possible
upon the right of Miss Pratt, the lummox being upon her left. A moment later, William wished that he had remained in the rear.
This was due to the unnecessary frankness of the Swedish lady named Anna, who was briefly pointing out the efficiency of various agricultural devices. Her attention being diverted by some