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Seventeen

by Booth Tarkington · English · Gutenberg #1611 · 402,119 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Seventeen

Author: Booth Tarkington


        
Release date: February 22, 2006 [eBook #1611]
                Most recently updated: March 3, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1611

Credits: Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVENTEEN ***




Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger





SEVENTEEN



A TALE OF YOUTH AND

SUMMER TIME AND

THE BAXTER FAMILY

ESPECIALLY WILLIAM


By Booth Tarkington




SEVENTEEN




TO S.K.T.




CONTENTS

     I.      WILLIAM
     II.     THE UNKNOWN
     III.    THE PAINFUL AGE
     IV.     GENESIS AND CLEMATIS
     V.      SORROWS WITHIN A BOILER
     VI.     TRUCULENCE
     VII.    MR. BAXTER'S EVENING CLOTHES
     VIII.   JANE
     IX.     LITTLE SISTERS HAVE BIG EARS
     X.      MR. PARCHER AND LOVE
     XI.     BEGINNING A TRUE FRIENDSHIP
     XII.    PROGRESS OF THE SYMPTOMS
     XIII.   AT HOME TO HIS FRIENDS
     XIV.    TIME DOES FLY
     XV.     ROMANCE OF STATISTICS
     XVI.    THE SHOWER
     XVII.   JANE'S THEORY
     XVIII.  THE BIG, FAT LUMMOX
     XIX.    “I DUNNO WHY IT IS”
      XX.     SYDNEY CARTON
     XXI.    MY LITTLE SWEETHEARTS
     XXII.   FORESHADOWINGS
     XXIII.  FATHERS FORGET
     XXIV.   CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN
     XXV.    YOUTH AND MR. PARCHER
     XXVI.   MISS BOKE
     XXVII.  MAROONED
     XXVIII. RANNIE KIRSTED
     XXIX.   ''DON'T FORGET!''
     XXX.     THE BRIDE-TO-BE




SEVENTEEN




I

WILLIAM

William Sylvanus Baxter paused for a moment of thought in front of the
drug-store at the corner of Washington Street and Central Avenue. He had
an internal question to settle before he entered the store: he wished
to allow the young man at the soda-fountain no excuse for saying, “Well,
make up your mind what it's goin' to be, can't you?” Rudeness of this
kind, especially in the presence of girls and women, was hard to bear,
and though William Sylvanus Baxter had borne it upon occasion, he
had reached an age when he found it intolerable. Therefore, to avoid
offering opportunity for anything of the kind, he decided upon chocolate
and strawberry, mixed, before approaching the fountain. Once there,
however, and a large glass of these flavors and diluted ice-cream
proving merely provocative, he said, languidly--an affectation, for he
could have disposed of half a dozen with gusto: “Well, now I'm here, I
might as well go one more. Fill 'er up again. Same.”

Emerging to the street, penniless, he bent a fascinated and dramatic
gaze upon his reflection in the drug-store window, and then, as he
turned his back upon the alluring image, his expression altered to
one of lofty and uncondescending amusement. That was his glance at the
passing public. From the heights, he seemed to bestow upon the world
a mysterious derision--for William Sylvanus Baxter was seventeen long
years of age, and had learned to present the appearance of one who
possesses inside information about life and knows all strangers and most
acquaintances to be of inferior caste, costume, and intelligence.

He lingered upon the corner awhile, not pressed for time. Indeed, he
found many hours of these summer months heavy upon his hands, for he had
no important occupation, unless some intermittent dalliance with a
work on geometry (anticipatory of the distant autumn) might be thought
important, which is doubtful, since he usually went to sleep on the
shady side porch at his home, with the book in his hand. So, having
nothing to call him elsewhere, he lounged before the drug-store in the
early afternoon sunshine, watching the passing to and fro of the lower
orders and bourgeoisie of the middle-sized midland city which claimed
him (so to speak) for a native son.

Apparently quite unembarrassed by his presence, they went about their
business, and the only people who looked at him with any attention were
pedestrians of color. It is true that when the gaze of these fell upon
him it was instantly arrested, for no colored person could have passed
him without a little pang of pleasure and of longing. Indeed, the
tropical violence of William Sylvanus Baxter's tie and the strange
brilliancy of his hat might have made it positively unsafe for him to
walk at night through the negro quarter of the town. And though no man
could have sworn to the color of that hat, whether it was blue or green,
yet its color was a saner thing than its shape, which was blurred,
tortured, and raffish; it might have been the miniature model of a
volcano that had blown off its cone and misbehaved disastrously on its
lower slopes as well. He had the air of wearing it as a matter of course
and with careless ease, but that was only an air--it was the apple of
his eye.

For the rest, his costume was neutral, subordinate, and even a little
neglected in the matter of a detail or two: one pointed flap of his soft
collar was held down by a button, but the other showed a frayed thread
where the button once had been; his low patent-leather shoes were of a
luster not solicitously cherished, and there could be no doubt that he
needed to get his hair cut, while something might have been done, too,
about the individualized hirsute prophecies which had made independent
appearances, here and there, upon his chin. He examined these from time
to time by the sense of touch, passing his hand across his face and
allowing his finger-tips a slight tapping motion wherever they detected
a prophecy.

Thus he fell into a pleasant musing and seemed to forget the crowded
street.




II

THE UNKNOWN

He was roused by the bluff greeting of an acquaintance not dissimilar to
himself in age, manner, and apparel.

“H'lo, Silly Bill!” said this person, halting beside William Sylvanus
Baxter. “What's the news?”

William showed no enthusiasm; on the contrary, a frown of annoyance
appeared upon his brow. The nickname “Silly Bill”--long ago compounded
by merry child-comrades from “William” and “Sylvanus”--was not to his
taste, especially in public, where he preferred to be addressed simply
and manfully as “Baxter.” Any direct expression of resentment, however,
was difficult, since it was plain that Johnnie Watson intended no
offense whatever and but spoke out of custom.

“Don't know any,” William replied, coldly.

“Dull times, ain't it?” said Mr. Watson, a little depressed by his
friend's manner. “I heard May Parcher was comin' back to town yesterday,
though.”

“Well, let her!” returned William, still severe.

“They said she was goin' to bring a girl to visit her,” Johnnie began in
a confidential tone. “They said she was a reg'lar ringdinger and--”

“Well, what if she is?” the discouraging Mr. Baxter interrupted. “Makes
little difference to ME, I guess!”

“Oh no, it don't. YOU don't take any interest in girls! OH no!”

“No, I do not!” was the emphatic and heartless retort. “I never saw one
in my life I'd care whether she lived or died!”

“Honest?” asked Johnnie, struck by the conviction with which this speech
was uttered. “Honest, is that so?”

“Yes, 'honest'!” William replied, sharply. “They could ALL die, _I_
wouldn't notice!”

Johnnie Watson was profoundly impressed. “Why, _I_ didn't know you felt
that way about 'em, Silly Bill. I always thought you were kind of--”

“Well, I do feel that way about 'em!” said William Sylvanus Baxter, and,
outraged by the repetition of the offensive nickname, he began to move
away. “You can tell 'em so for me, if you want to!” he added over his
shoulder. And he walked haughtily up the street, leaving Mr. Watson to
ponder upon this case of misogyny, never until that moment suspected.

It was beyond the power of his mind to grasp the fact that William
Sylvanus Baxter's cruel words about “girls” had been uttered because
William was annoyed at being called “Silly Bill” in a public place, and
had not known how to object otherwise than by showing contempt for any
topic of conversation proposed by the offender. This latter, being of
a disposition to accept statements as facts, was warmly interested,
instead of being hurt, and decided that here was something worth talking
about, especially with representatives of the class so sweepingly
excluded from the sympathies of Silly Bill.

William, meanwhile, made his way toward the “residence section” of the
town, and presently--with the passage of time found himself eased of his
annoyance. He walked in his own manner, using his shoulders to emphasize
an effect of carelessness which he wished to produce upon observers. For
his consciousness of observers was abnormal, since he had it whether any
one was looking at him or not, and it reached a crucial stage whenever
he perceived persons of his own age, but of opposite sex, approaching.

A person of this description was encountered upon the sidewalk within a
hundred yards of his own home, and William Sylvanus Baxter saw her while
yet she was afar off. The quiet and shady thoroughfare was empty of all
human life, at the time, save for those two; and she was upon the same
side of the street that he was; thus it became inevitable that they
should meet, face to face, for the first time in their lives. He
had perceived, even in the distance, that she was unknown to him, a
stranger, because he knew all the girls in this part of the town who
dressed as famously in the mode as that! And then, as the distance
between them lessened, he saw that she was ravishingly pretty; far, far
prettier, indeed, than any girl he knew. At least it seemed so, for it
is, unfortunately, much easier for strangers to be beautiful. Aside
from this advantage of mystery, the approaching vision was piquant and
graceful enough to have reminded a much older boy of a spotless white
kitten, for, in spite of a charmingly managed demureness, there was
precisely that kind of playfulness somewhere expressed about her. Just
now it was most definite in the look she bent upon the light and fluffy
burden which she carried nestled in the inner curve of her right arm:
a tiny dog with hair like cotton and a pink ribbon round his neck--an
animal sated with indulgence and idiotically unaware of his privilege.
He was half asleep!

William did not see the dog, or it is the plain, anatomical truth
that when he saw how pretty the girl was, his heart--his physical
heart--began to do things the like of which, experienced by an elderly
person, would have brought the doctor in haste. In addition, his
complexion altered--he broke out in fiery patches. He suffered from
breathlessness and from pressure on the diaphragm.

Afterward, he could not have named the color of the little parasol she
carried in her left hand, and yet, as it drew nearer and nearer, a rosy
haze suffused the neighborhood, and the whole world began to turn an
exquisite pink. Beneath this gentle glow, with eyes downcast in thought,
she apparently took no note of William, even when she and William had
come within a few yards of each other. Yet he knew that she would look
up and that their eyes must meet--a thing for which he endeavored to
prepare himself by a strange weaving motion of his neck against the
friction of his collar--for thus, instinctively, he strove to obtain
greater ease and some decent appearance of manly indifference. He felt
that his efforts were a failure; that his agitation was ruinous and
must be perceptible at a distance of miles, not feet. And then, in
the instant of panic that befell, when her dark-lashed eyelids slowly
lifted, he had a flash of inspiration.

He opened his mouth somewhat, and as her eyes met his, full and
startlingly, he placed three fingers across the orifice, and also
offered a slight vocal proof that she had surprised him in the midst of
a yawn.

“Oh, hum!” he said.

For the fraction of a second, the deep blue spark in her eyes glowed
brighter--gentle arrows of turquoise shot him through and through--and
then her glance withdrew from the ineffable collision. Her small,
white-shod feet continued to bear her onward, away from him, while
his own dimmed shoes peregrinated in the opposite direction--William
necessarily, yet with excruciating reluctance, accompanying them. But
just at the moment when he and the lovely creature were side by side,
and her head turned from him, she spoke that is, she murmured, but he
caught the words.

“You Flopit, wake up!” she said, in the tone of a mother talking
baby-talk. “SO indifferink!”

William's feet and his breath halted spasmodically. For an instant he
thought she had spoken to him, and then for the first time he perceived
the fluffy head of the dog bobbing languidly over her arm, with the
motion of her walking, and he comprehended that Flopit, and not William
Sylvanus Baxter, was the gentleman addressed. But--but had she MEANT
him?

His breath returning, though not yet operating in its usual manner,
he stood gazing after her, while the glamorous parasol passed down the
shady street, catching splashes of sunshine through the branches of
the maple-trees; and the cottony head of the tiny dog continued to be
visible, bobbing rhythmically over a filmy sleeve. Had she meant that
William was indifferent? Was it William that she really addressed?

He took two steps to follow her, but a suffocating shyness stopped him
abruptly and, in a horror lest she should glance round and detect him
in the act, he turned and strode fiercely to the gate of his own home
before he dared to look again. And when he did look, affecting great
casualness in the action, she was gone, evidently having turned the
corner. Yet the street did not seem quite empty; there was still
something warm and fragrant about it, and a rosy glamor lingered in
the air. William rested an elbow upon the gate-post, and with his chin
reposing in his hand gazed long in the direction in which the unknown
had vanished. And his soul was tremulous, for she had done her work but
too well.

“'Indifferink'!” he murmured, thrilling at his own exceedingly
indifferent imitation of her voice. “Indifferink!” that was just what he
would have her think--that he was a cold, indifferent man. It was what
he wished all girls to think. And “sarcastic”! He had been envious one
day when May Parcher said that Joe Bullitt was “awfully sarcastic.”
 William had spent the ensuing hour in an object-lesson intended to make
Miss Parcher see that William Sylvanus Baxter was twice as sarcastic
as Joe Bullitt ever thought of being, but this great effort had been
unsuccessful, because William, failed to understand that Miss Parcher
had only been sending a sort of message to Mr. Bullitt. It was a device
not unique among her sex; her hope was that William would repeat her
remark in such a manner that Joe Bullitt would hear it and call to
inquire what she meant.

“'SO indifferink'!” murmured William, leaning dreamily upon the
gate-post. “Indifferink!” He tried to get the exact cooing quality of
the unknown's voice. “Indifferink!” And, repeating the honeyed word, so
entrancingly distorted, he fell into a kind of stupor; vague, beautiful
pictures rising before him, the one least blurred being of himself, on
horseback, sweeping between Flopit and a racing automobile. And
then, having restored the little animal to its mistress, William
sat carelessly in the saddle (he had the Guardsman's seat) while the
perfectly trained steed wheeled about, forelegs in the air, preparing
to go. “But shall I not see you again, to thank you more properly?” she
cried, pleading. “Some other day--perhaps,” he answered.

And left her in a cloud of dust.




III

THE PAINFUL AGE

“OH WILL--EE!”

Thus a shrill voice, to his ears hideously different from that other,
interrupted and dispersed his visions. Little Jane, his ten-year-old
sister, stood upon the front porch, the door open behind her, and in her
hand she held a large slab of bread-and-butter covered with apple sauce
and powdered sugar. Evidence that she had sampled this compound was upon
her cheeks, and to her brother she was a repulsive sight.

“Will-ee!” she shrilled. “Look! GOOD!” And to emphasize the adjective
she indelicately patted the region of her body in which she believed
her stomach to be located. “There's a slice for you on the dining-room
table,” she informed him, joyously.

Outraged, he entered the house without a word to her, and, proceeding
to the dining-room, laid hands upon the slice she had mentioned, but
declined to eat it in Jane's company. He was in an exalted mood, and
though in no condition of mind or body would he refuse food of almost
any kind, Jane was an intrusion he could not suffer at this time.

He carried the refection to his own room and, locking the door, sat down
to eat, while, even as he ate, the spell that was upon him deepened in
intensity.

“Oh, eyes!” he whispered, softly, in that cool privacy and shelter from
the world. “Oh, eyes of blue!”

The mirror of a dressing-table sent him the reflection of his own eyes,
which also were blue; and he gazed upon them and upon the rest of his
image the while he ate his bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar.
Thus, watching himself eat, he continued to stare dreamily at the mirror
until the bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar had disappeared,
whereupon he rose and approached the dressing-table to study himself at
greater advantage.

He assumed as repulsive an expression as he could command, at the same
time making the kingly gesture of one who repels unwelcome attentions;
and it is beyond doubt that he was thus acting a little scene of
indifference. Other symbolic dramas followed, though an invisible
observer might have been puzzled for a key to some of them. One,
however, would have proved easily intelligible: his expression having
altered to a look of pity and contrition, he turned from the mirror,
and, walking slowly to a chair across the room, used his right hand in
a peculiar manner, seeming to stroke the air at a point about ten inches
above the back of the chair. “There, there, little girl,” he said in a
low, gentle voice. “I didn't know you cared!”

Then, with a rather abrupt dismissal of this theme, he returned to the
mirror and, after a questioning scrutiny, nodded solemnly, forming with
his lips the words, “The real thing--the real thing at last!” He
meant that, after many imitations had imposed upon him, Love--the real
thing--had come to him in the end. And as he turned away he murmured,
“And even her name--unknown!”

This evidently was a thought that continued to occupy him, for he walked
up and down the room, frowning; but suddenly his brow cleared and his
eye lit with purpose. Seating himself at a small writing-table by
the window, he proceeded to express his personality--though with
considerable labor--in something which he did not doubt to be a poem.

Three-quarters of an hour having sufficed for its completion, including
“rewriting and polish,” he solemnly signed it, and then read it several
times in a state of hushed astonishment. He had never dreamed that he
could do anything like this.

                    MILADY
          I do not know her name
          Though it would be the same
          Where roses bloom at twilight
          And the lark takes his flight
          It would be the same anywhere
          Where music sounds in air
          I was never introduced to the lady
          So I could not call her Lass or Sadie
          So I will call her Milady
          By the sands of the sea
          She always will be
          Just M'lady to me.
                         --WILLIAM SYLVANUS BAXTER, Esq., July 14

It is impossible to say how many times he might have read the poem over,
always with increasing amazement at his new-found powers, had he not
been interrupted by the odious voice of Jane.

“Will--ee!”

To William, in his high and lonely mood, this piercing summons brought
an actual shudder, and the very thought of Jane (with tokens of apple
sauce and sugar still upon her cheek, probably) seemed a kind of
sacrilege. He fiercely swore his favorite oath, acquired from the hero
of a work of fiction he admired, “Ye gods!” and concealed his poem in
the drawer of the writing-table, for Jane's footsteps were approaching
his door.

“Will--ee! Mamma wants you.” She tried the handle of the door.

“G'way!” he said.

“Will--ee!” Jane hammered upon the door with her fist. “Will--ee!”

“What you want?” he shouted.

Jane explained, certain pauses indicating that her attention was
partially diverted to another slice of bread-and-butter and apple sauce
and sugar. “Will--ee, mamma wants you--wants you to go help Genesis
bring some wash-tubs home and a tin clo'es-boiler--from the second-hand
man's store.”

“WHAT!”

Jane repeated the outrageous message, adding, “She wants you to
hurry--and I got some more bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar
for comin' to tell you.”

William left no doubt in Jane's mind about his attitude in reference
to the whole matter. His refusal was direct and infuriated, but, in the
midst of a multitude of plain statements which he was making, there
was a decisive tapping upon the door at a point higher than Jane could
reach, and his mother's voice interrupted:

“Hush, Willie! Open the door, please.”

He obeyed furiously, and Mrs. Baxter walked in with a deprecating air,
while Jane followed, so profoundly interested that, until almost the
close of the interview, she held her bread-and-butter and apple sauce
and sugar at a sort of way-station on its journey to her mouth.

“That's a nice thing to ask me to do!” stormed the unfortunate William.
“Ye gods! Do you think Joe Bullitt's mother would dare to--”

“Wait, dearie!” Mrs. Baxter begged, pacifically. “I just want to
explain--”

“'Explain'! Ye gods!”

“Now, now, just a minute, Willie!” she said. “What I wanted to explain
was why it's necessary for you to go with Genesis for the--”

“Never!” he shouted. “Never! You expect me to walk through the public
streets with that awful-lookin' old nigger--”

“Genesis isn't old,” she managed to interpolate. “He--”

But her frantic son disregarded her. “Second-hand wash-tubs!” he
vociferated. “And tin clothes-boilers! THAT'S what you want your SON to
carry through the public streets in broad daylight! Ye gods!”

“Well, there isn't anybody else,” she said. “Please don't rave so,
Willie, and say 'Ye gods' so much; it really isn't nice. I'm sure nobody
'll notice you--”

“'Nobody'!” His voice cracked in anguish. “Oh no! Nobody except the
whole town! WHY, when there's anything disgusting has to be done
in this family--why do _I_ always have to be the one? Why can't Genesis
bring the second-hand wash-tubs without ME? Why can't the second-hand
store deliver 'em? Why can't--”

“That's what I want to tell you,” she interposed, hurriedly, and as the
youth lifted his arms on high in a gesture of ultimate despair, and
then threw himself miserably into a chair, she obtained the floor. “The
second-hand store doesn't deliver things,” she said. “I bought them at
an auction, and it's going out of business, and they have to be taken
away before half past four this afternoon. Genesis can't bring them in
the wheelbarrow, because, he says, the wheel is broken, and he says he
can't possibly carry two tubs and a wash-boiler himself; and he can't
make two trips because it's a mile and a half, and I don't like to ask
him, anyway; and it would take too long, because he has to get back and
finish cutting the grass before your papa gets home this evening. Papa
said he HAD to! Now, I don't like to ask you, but it really isn't much.
You and Genesis can just slip up there and--”

“Slip!” moaned William. “'Just SLIP up there'! Ye gods!”

“Genesis is waiting on the back porch,” she said. “Really it isn't worth
your making all this fuss about.”

“Oh no!” he returned, with plaintive satire. “It's nothing! Nothing at
all!”

“Why, _I_ shouldn't mind it,” she said; briskly, “if I had the time. In
fact, I'll have to, if you won't.”

“Ye gods!” He clasped his head in his hands, crushed, for he knew that
the curse was upon him and he must go. “Ye gods!”

And then, as he stamped to the door, his tragic eye fell upon Jane, and
he emitted a final cry of pain:

“Can't you EVER wash your face?” he shouted.




IV

GENESIS AND CLEMATIS

Genesis and his dog were waiting just outside the kitchen door, and
of all the world these two creatures were probably the last in whose
company William Sylvanus Baxter desired to make a public appearance.
Genesis was an out-of-doors man and seldom made much of a toilet; his
overalls in particular betraying at important points a lack of the
anxiety he should have felt, since only Genesis himself, instead of
a supplementary fabric, was directly underneath them. And the aged,
grayish, sleeveless and neckless garment which sheltered him from waist
to collar-bone could not have been mistaken for a jersey, even though
what there was of it was dimly of a jerseyesque character. Upon the feet
of Genesis were things which careful study would have revealed to be
patent-leather dancing-pumps, long dead and several times buried;
and upon his head, pressing down his markedly criminal ears, was a
once-derby hat of a brown not far from Genesis's own color, though
decidedly without his gloss. A large ring of strange metals with the
stone missing, adorned a finger of his right hand, and from a corner of
his mouth projected an unlighted and spreading cigar stub which had the
appearance of belonging to its present owner merely by right of salvage.

And Genesis's dog, scratching himself at his master's feet, was the true
complement of Genesis, for although he was a youngish dog, and had not
long been the property of Genesis, he was a dog that would have been
recognized anywhere in the world as a colored person's dog. He was not a
special breed of dog--though there was something rather houndlike about
him--he was just a dog. His expression was grateful but anxious, and he
was unusually bald upon the bosom, but otherwise whitish and brownish,
with a gaunt, haunting face and no power to look anybody in the eye.

He rose apprehensively as the fuming William came out of the kitchen,
but he was prepared to follow his master faithfully, and when William
and Genesis reached the street the dog was discovered at their heels,
whereupon William came to a decisive halt.

“Send that dog back,” he said, resolutely. “I'm not going through the
streets with a dog like that, anyhow!”

Genesis chuckled. “He ain' goin' back,” he said. “'Ain' nobody kin
make 'at dog go back. I 'ain' had him mo'n two weeks, but I don' b'lieve
Pres'dent United States kin make 'at dog go back! I show you.” And,
wheeling suddenly, he made ferocious gestures, shouting. “G'on back,
dog!”

The dog turned, ran back a few paces, halted, and then began to follow
again, whereupon Genesis pretended to hurl stones at him; but the animal
only repeated his manoeuver--and he repeated it once more when William
aided Genesis by using actual missiles, which were dodged with almost
careless adeptness.

“I'll show him!” said William, hotly. “I'll show him he can't follow
ME!” He charged upon the dog, shouting fiercely, and this seemed to do
the work, for the hunted animal, abandoning his partial flights, turned
a tucked-under tail, ran all the way back to the alley, and disappeared
from sight. “There!” said William. “I guess that 'll show him!”

“I ain' bettin' on it!” said Genesis, as they went on. “He nev' did
stop foll'in' me yet. I reckon he the foll'indest dog in the worl'! Name
Clem.”

“Well, he can't follow ME!” said the surging William, in whose mind's
eye lingered the vision of an exquisite doglet, with pink-ribboned
throat and a cottony head bobbing gently over a filmy sleeve. “He
doesn't come within a mile of ME, no matter what his name is!”

“Name Clem fer short,” said Genesis, amiably. “I trade in a mandoline
fer him what had her neck kind o' busted off on one side. I couldn' play
her nohow, an' I found her, anyways. Yes-suh, I trade in 'at mandoline
fer him 'cause always did like to have me a good dog--but I d'in' have
me no name fer him; an' this here Blooie Bowers, what I trade in the
mandoline to, he say HE d'in have no name fer him. Say nev' did know if
WAS a name fer him 'tall. So I'z spen' the evenin' at 'at lady's house,
Fanny, what used to be cook fer Miz Johnson, nex' do' you' maw's; an'
I ast Fanny what am I go'n' a do about it, an' Fanny say, 'Call him
Clematis,' she say. ''At's a nice name!' she say. 'Clematis.' So 'at's
name I name him, Clematis. Call him Clem fer short, but Clematis his
real name. He'll come, whichever one you call him, Clem or Clematis.
Make no diff'ence to him, long's he git his vittles. Clem or Clematis,
HE ain' carin'!”

William's ear was deaf to this account of the naming of Clematis; he
walked haughtily, but as rapidly as possible, trying to keep a little in
advance of his talkative companion, who had never received the training
as a servitor which should have taught him his proper distance from the
Young Master. William's suffering eyes were fixed upon remoteness; and
his lips moved, now and then, like a martyr's, pronouncing inaudibly a
sacred word. “Milady! Oh, Milady!”

Thus they had covered some three blocks of their journey--the
too-democratic Genesis chatting companionably and William burning with
mortification--when the former broke into loud laughter.

“What I tell you?” he cried, pointing ahead. “Look ayonnuh! NO, suh,
Pres'dent United States hisse'f ain' go tell 'at dog stay home!”

And there, at the corner before them, waited Clematis, roguishly lying
in a mud-puddle in the gutter. He had run through alleys parallel to
their course--and in the face of such demoniac cunning the wretched
William despaired of evading his society. Indeed, there was nothing to
do but to give up, and so the trio proceeded, with William unable to
decide which contaminated him more, Genesis or the loyal Clematis. To
his way of thinking, he was part of a dreadful pageant, and he winced
pitiably whenever the eye of a respectable passer-by fell upon him.
Everybody seemed to stare--nay, to leer! And he felt that the whole
world would know his shame by nightfall.

Nobody, he reflected, seeing him in such company, could believe that he
belonged to “one of the oldest and best families in town.” Nobody would
understand that he was not walking with Genesis for the pleasure of his
companionship--until they got the tubs and the wash-boiler, when his
social condition must be thought even more degraded. And nobody, he was
shudderingly positive, could see that Clematis was not his dog (Clematis
kept himself humbly a little in the rear, but how was any observer to
know that he belonged to Genesis and not to William?)

And how frightful that THIS should befall him on such a day, the very
day that his soul had been split asunder by the turquoise shafts of
Milady's eyes and he had learned to know the Real Thing at last!

“Milady! Oh, Milady!”

For in the elder teens adolescence may be completed, but not by
experience, and these years know their own tragedies. It is the time of
life when one finds it unendurable not to seem perfect in all outward
matters: in worldly position, in the equipments of wealth, in family,
and in the grace, elegance, and dignity of all appearances in
public. And yet the youth is continually betrayed by the child still
intermittently insistent within him, and by the child which undiplomatic
people too often assume him to be. Thus with William's attire: he could
ill have borne any suggestion that it was not of the mode, but taking
care of it was a different matter. Also, when it came to his appetite,
he could and would eat anything at any time, but something younger than
his years led him--often in semi-secrecy--to candy-stores and soda-water
fountains and ice-cream parlors; he still relished green apples and knew
cravings for other dangerous inedibles. But these survivals were far
from painful to him; what injured his sensibilities was the disposition
on the part of people especially his parents, and frequently his aunts
and uncles--to regard him as a little boy. Briefly, the deference his
soul demanded in its own right, not from strangers only, but from
his family, was about that which is supposed to be shown a Grand Duke
visiting his Estates. Therefore William suffered often.

But the full ignominy of the task his own mother had set him this
afternoon was not realized until he and Genesis set forth upon the
return journey from the second-hand shop, bearing the two wash-tubs, a
clothes-wringer (which Mrs. Baxter had forgotten to mention), and the
tin boiler--and followed by the lowly Clematis.




V

SORROWS WITHIN A BOILER

There was something really pageant-like about the little excursion now,
and the glittering clothes-boiler, borne on high, sent flashing lights
far down the street. The wash-tubs were old-fashioned, of wood; they
refused to fit one within the other; so William, with his right hand,
and Genesis, with his left, carried one of the tubs between them;
Genesis carried the heavy wringer with his right hand, and he had
fastened the other tub upon his back by means of a bit of rope which
passed over his shoulder; thus the tin boiler, being a lighter burden,
fell to William.

The cover would not stay in place, but continually fell off when he
essayed to carry the boiler by one of its handles, and he made shift
to manage the accursed thing in various ways--the only one proving
physically endurable being, unfortunately, the most grotesque. He
was forced to carry the cover in his left hand and to place his head
partially within the boiler itself, and to support it--tilted obliquely
to rest upon his shoulders--as a kind of monstrous tin cowl or helmet.
This had the advantage of somewhat concealing his face, though when
he leaned his head back, in order to obtain clearer vision of what was
before him, the boiler slid off and fell to the pavement with a noise
that nearly caused a runaway, and brought the hot-cheeked William much
derisory attention from a passing street-car. However, he presently
caught the knack of keeping it in position, and it fell no more.

Seen from the rear, William was unrecognizable--but interesting.
He appeared to be a walking clothes-boiler, armed with a shield and
connected, by means of a wash-tub, with a negro of informal ideas
concerning dress. In fact, the group was whimsical, and three young
people who turned in behind it, out of a cross-street, indulged
immediately in fits of inadequately suppressed laughter, though neither
Miss May Parcher nor Mr. Johnnie Watson even remotely suspected that the
legs beneath the clothes-boiler belonged to an acquaintance. And as
for the third of this little party, Miss Parcher's visitor, those
peregrinating legs suggested nothing familiar to her.

“Oh, see the fun-ee laundrymans!” she cried, addressing a cottony
doglet's head that bobbed gently up and down over her supporting arm.
“Sweetest Flopit must see, too! Flopit, look at the fun-ee laundrymans!”

“'Sh!” murmured Miss Parcher, choking. “He might hear you.”

He might, indeed, since they were not five yards behind him and the
dulcet voice was clear and free. Within the shadowy interior of the
clothes-boiler were features stricken with sudden, utter horror.
“FLOPIT!”

The attention of Genesis was attracted by a convulsive tugging of the
tub which he supported in common with William; it seemed passionately to
urge greater speed. A hissing issued from the boiler, and Genesis caught
the words, huskily whispered:

“Walk faster! You got to walk faster.”

The tub between them tugged forward with a pathos of appeal wasted upon
the easy-going Genesis.

“I got plenty time cut 'at grass befo' you' pa gits home,” he said,
reassuringly. “Thishere rope what I got my extry tub slung to is 'mos'
wo' plum thew my hide.”

Having uttered this protest, he continued to ambulate at the same pace,
though somewhat assisted by the forward pull of the connecting tub, an
easance of burden which he found pleasant; and no supplementary message
came from the clothes-boiler, for the reason that it was incapable
of further speech. And so the two groups maintained for a time their
relative positions, about fifteen feet apart.

The amusement of the second group having abated through satiety, the
minds of its components turned to other topics. “Now Flopit must have
his darlin' 'ickle run,” said Flopit's mistress, setting the doglet upon
the ground. “That's why sweetest Flopit and I and all of us came for a
walk, instead of sitting on the nice, cool porch-kins. SEE the sweetie
toddle! Isn't he adorable, May? ISN'T he adorable, Mr. Watson?”

Mr. Watson put a useless sin upon his soul, since all he needed to say
was a mere “Yes.” He fluently avowed himself to have become insane over
the beauty of Flopit.

Flopit, placed upon the ground, looked like something that had dropped
from a Christmas tree, and he automatically made use of fuzzy legs,
somewhat longer than a caterpillar's, to patter after his mistress. He
was neither enterprising nor inquisitive; he kept close to the rim of
her skirt, which was as high as he could see, and he wished to be taken
up and carried again. He was in a half-stupor; it was his desire
to remain in that condition, and his propulsion was almost wholly
subconscious, though surprisingly rapid, considering his dimensions.

“My goo'ness!” exclaimed Genesis, glancing back over his shoulder. “'At
li'l' thing ack like he think he go'n a GIT somewheres!” And then, in
answer to a frantic pull upon the tub, “Look like you mighty strong
t'day,” he said. “I cain' go no fastuh!” He glanced back again,
chuckling. “'At li'l' bird do well not mix up nothin' 'ith ole man
Clematis!”

Clematis, it happened, was just coming into view, having been detained
round the corner by his curiosity concerning a set of Louis XVI.
furniture which some house-movers were unpacking upon the sidewalk. A
curl of excelsior, in fact, had attached itself to his nether lip,
and he was pausing to remove it--when his roving eye fell upon Flopit.
Clematis immediately decided to let the excelsior remain where it was,
lest he miss something really important.

He approached with glowing eagerness at a gallop.

Then, having almost reached his goal, he checked himself with surprising
abruptness and walked obliquely beside Flopit, but upon a parallel
course, his manner agitated and his brow furrowed with perplexity.
Flopit was about the size of Clematis's head, and although Clematis was
certain that Flopit was something alive, he could not decide what.

Flopit paid not the slightest attention to Clematis. The self-importance
of dogs, like that of the minds of men, is in directly inverse ratio to
their size; and if the self-importance of Flopit could have been taken
out of him and given to an elephant, that elephant would have been
insufferable.

Flopit continued to pay no attention to Clematis.

All at once, a roguish and irresponsible mood seized upon Clematis; he
laid his nose upon the ground, deliberating a bit of gaiety, and then,
with a little rush, set a large, rude paw upon the sensitive face
of Flopit and capsized him. Flopit uttered a bitter complaint in an
asthmatic voice.

“Oh, nassy dray bid Horror!” cried his mistress, turning quickly at this
sound and waving a pink parasol at Clematis. “Shoo! DIRTY dog! Go 'way!”
 And she was able somehow to connect him with the wash-tub and boiler,
for she added, “Nassy laundrymans to have bad doggies!”

Mr. Watson rushed upon Clematis with angry bellowings and imaginary
missiles. “You disgusting brute!” he roared. “How DARE you?”

Apparently much alarmed, Clematis lowered his ears, tucked his tail
underneath him, and fled to the rear, not halting once or looking back
until he disappeared round the corner whence he had come. “There!” said
Mr. Watson. “I guess HE won't bother us again very soon!”

It must be admitted that Milady was one of those people who do not mind
being overheard, no matter what they say. “Lucky for us,” she said,
“we had a nice dray bid MANS to protect us, wasn't it, Flopit?” And
she thought it necessary to repeat something she had already made
sufficiently emphatic.

“Nassy laundrymans!”

“I expect I gave that big mongrel the fright of his life,” said Mr.
Watson, with complacency. “He'll probably run a mile!”

The shoulders of Genesis shook as he was towed along by the convulsive
tub. He knew from previous evidence that Clematis possessed both a high
quality and a large quantity of persistence, and it was his hilarious
opinion that the dog had not gone far. As a matter of fact, the head
of Clematis was at this moment cautiously extended from behind the
fence-post at the corner whither he had fled. Viewing with growing
assurance the scene before him, he permitted himself to emerge wholly,
and sat down, with his head tilted to one side in thought. Almost at the
next corner the clothes-boiler with legs, and the wash-tubs, and
Genesis were marching on; and just behind them went three figures not
so familiar to Clematis, and connected in his mind with a vague, mild
apprehension. But all backs were safely toward him, and behind them
pattered that small live thing which had so profoundly interested him.

He rose and came on apace, silently.

When he reached the side of Flopit, some eight or nine seconds later,
Clematis found himself even more fascinated and perplexed than during
their former interview, though again Flopit seemed utterly to disregard
him. Clematis was not at all sure that Flopit WAS a dog, but he felt
that it was his business to find out. Heaven knows, so far, Clematis had
not a particle of animosity in his heart, but he considered it his duty
to himself--in case Flopit turned out not to be a dog--to learn just
what he was. The thing might be edible.

Therefore, again pacing obliquely beside Flopit (while the human beings
ahead went on, unconscious of the approaching climax behind them)
Clematis sought to detect, by senses keener than sight, some evidence of
Flopit's standing in the zoological kingdom; and, sniffing at the top
of Flopit's head--though Clematis was uncertain about its indeed being a
head--he found himself baffled and mentally much disturbed.

Flopit did not smell like a dog; he smelled of violets.




VI

TRUCULENCE

Clematis frowned and sneezed as the infinitesimal particles of sachet
powder settled in the lining of his nose. He became serious, and was
conscious of a growing feeling of dislike; he began to be upset over the
whole matter. But his conscience compelled him to persist in his
attempt to solve the mystery; and also he remembered that one should
be courteous, no matter what some other thing chooses to be. Hence he
sought to place his nose in contact with Flopit's, for he had perceived
on the front of the mysterious stranger a buttony something which might
possibly be a nose.

Flopit evaded the contact. He felt that he had endured about enough
from this Apache, and that it was nearly time to destroy him. Having no
experience of battle, save with bedroom slippers and lace handkerchiefs,
Flopit had little doubt of his powers as a warrior. Betrayed by his
majestic self-importance, he had not the remotest idea that he was
small. Usually he saw the world from a window, or from the seat of an
automobile, or over his mistress's arm. He looked down on all dogs,
thought them ruffianly, despised them; and it is the miraculous truth
that not only was he unaware that he was small, but he did not even know
that he was a dog, himself. He did not think about himself in that way.

From these various ignorances of his sprang his astonishing, his
incredible, valor. Clematis, with head lowered close to Flopit's,
perceived something peering at him from beneath the tangled curtain
of cottony, violet-scented stuff which seemed to be the upper part of
Flopit's face. It was Flopit's eye, a red-rimmed eye and sore--and so
demoniacally malignant that Clematis, indescribably startled, would
have withdrawn his own countenance at once--but it was too late. With a
fearful oath Flopit sprang upward and annexed himself to the under lip
of the horrified Clematis.

Horror gave place to indignation instantly; and as Miss Parcher and her
guest turned, screaming, Clematis's self-command went all to pieces.

Miss Parcher became faint and leaned against the hedge along which they
had been passing, but her visitor continued to scream, while Mr. Watson
endeavored to kick Clematis without ruining Flopit--a difficult matter.

Flopit was baresark from the first, and the mystery is where he
learned the dog-cursing that he did. In spite of the David-and-Goliath
difference in size it would be less than justice to deny that a very
fair dog-fight took place. It was so animated, in truth, that the one
expert in such matters who was present found himself warmly interested.
Genesis relieved himself of the burden of the wash-tub upon his back,
dropped the handle of that other in which he had a half-interest,
and watched the combat; his mouth, like his eyes, wide open in simple
pleasure.

He was not destined to enjoy the spectacle to the uttermost; a furious
young person struck him a frantic, though harmless, blow with a pink
parasol.

“You stop them!” she screamed. “You make that horrible dog stop, or I'll
have you arrested!”

Genesis rushed forward.

“You CLEM!” he shouted.

And instantly Clematis was but a whitish and brownish streak along the
hedge. He ran like a dog in a moving picture when they speed the film,
and he shot from sight, once more, round the corner, while Flopit, still
cursing, was seized and squeezed in his mistress's embrace.

But she was not satisfied. “Where's that laundryman with the tin thing
on his head?” she demanded. “He ought to be arrested for having such a
dog. It's HIS dog, isn't it? Where is he?”

Genesis turned and looked round about the horizon, mystified. William
Sylvanus Baxter and the clothes-boiler had disappeared from sight.

“If he owns that dog,” asserted the still furious owner of Flopit, “I
WILL have him arrested. Where is he? Where is that laundryman?”

“Why, he,” Genesis began slowly, “HE ain' no laundrym--” He came to an
uncertain pause. If she chose to assume, with quick feminine intuition,
that the dog was William's and that William was a laundryman, it was not
Genesis's place to enlighten her. “'Tic'larly,” he reflected, “since
she talk so free about gittin' people 'rested!” He became aware that
William had squirmed through the hedge and now lay prostrate on the
other side of it, but this, likewise, was something within neither his
duty nor his inclination to reveal.

“Thishere laundryman,” said Genesis, resuming--“thishere laundryman what
own the dog, I reckon he mus' hopped on 'at street-car what went by.”

“Well, he OUGHT to be arrested!” she said, and, pressing her cheek
to Flopit's, she changed her tone. “Izzum's ickle heart a-beatin' so
floppity! Um's own mumsy make ums all right, um's p'eshus Flopit!”

Then with the consoling Miss Parcher's arm about her, and Mr. Watson
even more dazzled with love than when he had first met her, some three
hours past, she made her way between the tubs, and passed on down the
street. Not till the three (and Flopit) were out of sight did William
come forth from the hedge.

“Hi yah!” exclaimed Genesis. “'At lady go'n a 'rest ev'y man what own a
dog, 'f she had her way!”

But William spoke no word.

In silence, then, they resumed their burdens and their journey. Clematis
was waiting for them at the corner ahead.




VII

MR. BAXTER'S EVENING CLOTHES

That evening, at about half-past seven o'clock, dinner being over and
Mr. and Mrs. Baxter (parents of William) seated in the library, Mrs.
Baxter said:

“I think it's about time for you to go and dress for your Emerson Club
meeting, papa, if you intend to go.”

“Do I have to dress?” Mr. Baxter asked, plaintively.

“I think nearly all the men do, don't they?” she insisted.

“But I'm getting old enough not to have to, don't you think, mamma?” he
urged, appealingly. “When a man's my age--”

“Nonsense!” she said. “Your figure is exactly like William's. It's the
figure that really shows age first, and yours hasn't begun to.” And she
added, briskly, “Go along like a good boy and get it ever!”

Mr. Baxter rose submissively and went upstairs to do as he was bid. But,
after fifteen or twenty minutes, during which his footsteps had
been audible in various parts of the house, he called down over the
banisters:

“I can't find 'em.”

“Can't find what?”

“My evening clothes. They aren't anywhere in the house.”

“Where did you put them the last time you wore them?” she called.

“I don't know. I haven't had 'em on since last spring.”

“All right; I'll come,” she said, putting her sewing upon the table and
rising. “Men never can find anything,” she observed, additionally, as
she ascended the stairs. “Especially their own things!”

On this occasion, however, as she was obliged to admit a little later,
women were not more efficacious than the duller sex. Search high, search
low, no trace of Mr. Baxter's evening clothes were to be found. “Perhaps
William could find them,” said Mrs. Baxter, a final confession of
helplessness.

But William was no more to be found than the missing apparel. William,
in fact, after spending some time in the lower back hall, listening to
the quest above, had just gone out through the kitchen door. And after
some ensuing futile efforts, Mr. Baxter was forced to proceed to his
club in the accoutrements of business.

He walked slowly, enjoying the full moon, which sailed up a river in the
sky--the open space between the trees that lined the street--and as
he passed the house of Mr. Parcher he noted the fine white shape of a
masculine evening bosom gleaming in the moonlight on the porch. A
dainty figure in white sat beside it, and there was another white figure
present, though this one was so small that Mr. Baxter did not see it at
all. It was the figure of a tiny doglet, and it reposed upon the black
masculine knees that belonged to the evening bosom.

Mr. Baxter heard a dulcet voice.

“He IS indifferink, isn't he, sweetest Flopit? Seriously, though,
Mr. Watson was telling me about you to-day. He says you're the most
indifferent man he knows. He says you don't care two minutes whether a
girl lives or dies. Isn't he a mean ole wicked sing, p'eshus Flopit!”

The reply was inaudible, and Mr. Baxter passed on, having recognized
nothing of his own.

“These YOUNG fellows don't have any trouble finding their dress-suits, I
guess,” he murmured. “Not on a night like this!”


... Thus William, after a hard day, came to the gates of his romance,
entering those portals of the moon in triumph. At one stroke his dashing
raiment gave him high superiority over Johnnie Watson and other rivals
who might loom. But if he had known to what undoing this great coup
exposed him, it is probable that Mr. Baxter would have appeared at the
Emerson Club, that night, in evening clothes.




VIII

JANE

William's period of peculiar sensitiveness dated from that evening, and
Jane, in particular, caused him a great deal of anxiety. In fact, he
began to feel that Jane was a mortification which his parents might have
spared him, with no loss to themselves or to the world. Not having
shown that consideration for anybody, they might at least have been less
spinelessly indulgent of her. William's bitter conviction was that he
had never seen a child so starved of discipline or so lost to etiquette
as Jane.

For one thing, her passion for bread-and-butter, covered with apple
sauce and powdered sugar, was getting to be a serious matter. Secretly,
William was not yet so changed by love as to be wholly indifferent to
this refection himself, but his consumption of it was private, whereas
Jane had formed the habit of eating it in exposed places--such as the
front yard or the sidewalk. At no hour of the day was it advisable for
a relative to approach the neighborhood in fastidious company, unless
prepared to acknowledge kinship with a spindly young person either
eating bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered sugar, or all too
visibly just having eaten bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered
sugar. Moreover, there were times when Jane had worse things than apple
sauce to answer for, as William made clear to his mother in an oration
as hot as the July noon sun which looked down upon it.

Mrs. Baxter was pleasantly engaged with a sprinkling-can and some small
flower-beds in the shady back yard, and Jane, having returned from
various sidewalk excursions, stood close by as a spectator, her hands
replenished with the favorite food and her chin rising and falling in
gentle motions, little prophecies of the slight distensions which passed
down her slender throat with slow, rhythmic regularity. Upon this calm
scene came William, plunging round a corner of the house, furious yet
plaintive.

“You've got to do something about that child!” he began. “I CAN not
stand it!”

Jane looked at him dumbly, not ceasing, how ever, to eat; while Mrs.
Baxter thoughtfully continued her sprinkling.

“You've been gone all morning, Willie,” she said. “I thought your father
mentioned at breakfast that he expected you to put in at least four
hours a day on your mathematics and--”

“That's neither here nor there,” William returned, vehemently. “I just
want to say this: if you don't do something about Jane, I will! Just
look at her! LOOK at her, I ask you! That's just the way she looked half
an hour ago, out on the public sidewalk in front of the house, when
I came by here with Miss PRATT! That was pleasant, wasn't it? To be
walking with a lady on the public street and meet a member of my family
looking like that! Oh, LOVELY!”

In the anguish of this recollection his voice cracked, and though his
eyes were dry his gestures wept for him. Plainly, he was about to reach
the most lamentable portion of his narrative. “And then she HOLLERED at
me! She hollered, 'Oh, WILL--EE!'” Here he gave an imitation of Jane's
voice, so damnatory that Jane ceased to eat for several moments and drew
herself up with a kind of dignity. “She hollered, 'Oh, WILL--EE' at
me!” he stormed. “Anybody would think I was about six years old! She
hollered, 'Oh, Will--ee,' and she rubbed her stomach and slushed apple
sauce all over her face, and she kept hollering, 'Will--ee!' with her
mouth full. 'Will--ee, look! Good! Bread-and-butter and apple sauce and
sugar! I bet you wish YOU had some, Will--ee!'”

“You did eat some, the other day,” said Jane. “You ate a whole lot. You
eat it every chance you get!”

“You hush up!” he shouted, and returned to his description of the
outrage. “She kept FOLLOWING us! She followed us, hollering, 'WILL--EE!'
till it's a wonder we didn't go deaf! And just look at her! I don't
see how you can stand it to have her going around like that and people
knowing it's your child! Why, she hasn't got enough ON!”

Mrs. Baxter laughed. “Oh, for this very hot weather, I really don't
think people notice or care much about--”

“'Notice'!” he wailed. “I guess Miss PRATT noticed! Hot weather's no
excuse for--for outright obesity!” (As Jane was thin, it is probable
that William had mistaken the meaning of this word.) “Why, half o' what
she HAS got on has come unfastened--especially that frightful thing
hanging around her leg--and look at her back, I just beg you! I ask you
to look at her back. You can see her spinal cord!”

“Column,” Mrs. Baxter corrected. “Spinal column, Willie.”

“What do _I_ care which it is?” he fumed. “People aren't supposed to go
around with it EXPOSED, whichever it is! And with apple sauce on their
ears!”

“There is not!” Jane protested, and at the moment when she spoke she was
right. Naturally, however, she lifted her hands to the accused ears, and
the unfortunate result was to justify William's statement.

“LOOK!” he cried. “I just ask you to look! Think of it: that's the sight
I have to meet when I'm out walking with Miss PRATT! She asked me who
it was, and I wish you'd seen her face. She wanted to know who 'that
curious child' was, and I'm glad you didn't hear the way she said it.
'Who IS that curious child?' she said, and I had to tell her it was my
sister. I had to tell Miss PRATT it was my only SISTER!”

“Willie, who is Miss Pratt?” asked Mrs. Baxter, mildly. “I don't think
I've ever heard of--”

Jane had returned to an admirable imperturbability, but she chose
this moment to interrupt her mother, and her own eating, with remarks
delivered in a tone void of emphasis or expression.

“Willie's mashed on her,” she said, casually. “And she wears false
side-curls. One almost came off.”

At this unspeakable desecration William's face was that of a high priest
stricken at the altar.

“She's visitin' Miss May Parcher,” added the deadly Jane. “But the
Parchers are awful tired of her. They wish she'd go home, but they don't
like to tell her so.”

One after another these insults from the canaille fell upon the ears of
William. That slanders so atrocious could soil the universal air seemed
unthinkable.

He became icily calm.

“NOW if you don't punish her,” he said, deliberately, “it's because you
have lost your sense of duty!”

Having uttered these terrible words, he turned upon his heel and marched
toward the house. His mother called after him:

“Wait, Willie. Jane doesn't mean to hurt your feelings--”

“My feelings!” he cried, the iciness of his demeanor giving way under
the strain of emotion. “You stand there and allow her to speak as she
did of one of the--one of the--” For a moment William appeared to be at
a loss, and the fact is that it always has been a difficult matter to
describe THE bright, ineffable divinity of the world to one's mother,
especially in the presence of an inimical third party of tender years.
“One of the--” he said; “one of the--the noblest--one of the noblest--”

Again he paused.

“Oh, Jane didn't mean anything,” said Mrs. Baxter. “And if you think
Miss Pratt is so nice, I'll ask May Parcher to bring her to tea with us
some day. If it's too hot, we'll have iced tea, and you can ask Johnnie
Watson, if you like. Don't get so upset about things, Willie!”

“'Upset'!” he echoed, appealing to heaven against this word. “'Upset'!”
 And he entered the house in a manner most dramatic.

“What made you say that?” Mrs. Baxter asked, turning curiously to Jane
when William had disappeared. “Where did you hear any such things?”

“I was there,” Jane replied, gently eating on and on. William could come
and William could go, but Jane's alimentary canal went on forever.

“You were where, Jane?”

“At the Parchers'.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yesterday afternoon,” said Jane, “when Miss Parcher had the
Sunday-school class for lemonade and cookies.”

“Did you hear Miss Parcher say--”

“No'm,” said Jane. “I ate too many cookies, I guess, maybe. Anyways,
Miss Parcher said I better lay down--”

“LIE down, Jane.”

“Yes'm. On the sofa in the liberry, an' Mrs. Parcher an' Mr. Parcher
came in there an' sat down, after while, an' it was kind of dark, an'
they didn't hardly notice me, or I guess they thought I was asleep,
maybe. Anyways, they didn't talk loud, but Mr. Parcher would sort of
grunt an' ack cross. He said he just wished he knew when he was goin'
to have a home again. Then Mrs. Parcher said May HAD to ask her
Sunday-school class, but he said he never meant the Sunday-school class.
He said since Miss Pratt came to visit, there wasn't anywhere he could
go, because Willie Baxter an' Johnnie Watson an' Joe Bullitt an' all the
other ones like that were there all the time, an' it made him just sick
at the stummick, an' he did wish there was some way to find out when she
was goin' home, because he couldn't stand much more talk about love.
He said Willie an' Johnnie Watson an' Joe Bullitt an' Miss Pratt were
always arguin' somep'm about love, an' he said Willie was the worst.
Mamma, he said he didn't like the rest of it, but he said he guessed he
could stand it if it wasn't for Willie. An' he said the reason they were
all so in love of Miss Pratt was because she talks baby-talk, an' he
said he couldn't stand much more baby-talk. Mamma, she has the loveliest
little white dog, an' Mr. Parcher doesn't like it. He said he couldn't
go anywhere around the place without steppin' on the dog or Willie
Baxter. An' he said he couldn't sit on his own porch any more; he said
he couldn't sit even in the liberry but he had to hear baby-talk goin'
on SOMEwheres an' then either Willie Baxter or Joe Bullitt or
somebody or another arguin' about love. Mamma, he said”--Jane became
impressive--“he said, mamma, he said he didn't mind the Sunday-school
class, but he couldn't stand those dam boys!”

“Jane!” Mrs. Baxter cried, “you MUSTN'T say such things!”

“I didn't, mamma. Mr. Parcher said it. He said he couldn't stand those
da--”

“JANE! No matter what he said, you mustn't repeat--”

“But I'm not. I only said Mr. PARCHER said he couldn't stand those d--”

Mrs. Baxter cut the argument short by imprisoning Jane's mouth with a
firm hand. Jane continued to swallow quietly until released. Then she
said:

“But, mamma, how can I tell you what he said unless I say--”

“Hush!” Mrs. Baxter commanded. “You must never, never again use such a
terrible and wicked word.”

“I won't, mamma,” Jane said, meekly. Then she brightened. “Oh, _I_ know!
I'll say 'word' instead. Won't that be all right?”

“I--I suppose so.”

“Well, Mr. Parcher said he couldn't stand those word boys. That sounds
all right, doesn't it, mamma?”

Mrs. Baxter hesitated, but she was inclined to hear as complete as
possible a report of Mr. and Mrs. Parcher's conversation, since it
seemed to concern William so nearly; and she well knew that Jane had her
own way of telling things--or else they remained untold.

“I--I suppose so,” Mrs. Baxter said, again.

“Well, they kind of talked along,” Jane continued, much pleased;--“an'
Mr. Parcher said when he was young he wasn't any such a--such a word
fool as these young word fools were. He said in all his born days Willie
Baxter was the wordest fool he ever saw!”

Willie Baxter's mother flushed a little. “That was very unjust and very
wrong of Mr. Parcher,” she said, primly.

“Oh no, mamma!” Jane protested. “Mrs. Parcher thought so, too.”

“Did she, indeed!”

“Only she didn't say word or wordest or anything like that,” Jane
explained. “She said it was because Miss Pratt had coaxed him to be so
in love of her, an' Mr. Parcher said he didn't care whose fault it was,
Willie was a--a word calf an' so were all the rest of 'em, Mr. Parcher
said. An' he said he couldn't stand it any more. Mr. Parcher said that a
whole lot of times, mamma. He said he guess' pretty soon he'd haf to be
in the lunatic asylum if Miss Pratt stayed a few more days with her word
little dog an' her word Willie Baxter an' all the other word calfs. Mrs.
Parcher said he oughtn't to say 'word,' mamma. She said, 'Hush, hush!'
to him, mamma. He talked like this, mamma: he said, 'I'll be word if I
stand it!' An' he kept gettin' crosser, an' he said, 'Word! Word! WORD!
WOR--'”

“There!” Mrs. Baxter interrupted, sharply. “That will do, Jane! We'll
talk about something else now, I think.”

Jane looked hurt; she was taking great pleasure in this confidential
interview, and gladly would have continued to quote the harried Mr.
Parcher at great length. Still, she was not entirely uncontent: she must
have had some perception that her performance merely as a notable bit of
reportorial art--did not wholly lack style, even if her attire did. Yet,
brilliant as Jane's work was, Mrs. Baxter felt no astonishment; several
times ere this Jane had demonstrated a remarkable faculty for the
retention of details concerning William. And running hand in hand with
a really superb curiosity, this powerful memory was making Jane an even
greater factor in William's life than he suspected.

During the glamors of early love, if there be a creature more deadly
than the little brother of a budding woman, that creature is the little
sister of a budding man. The little brother at least tells in the open
all he knows, often at full power of his lungs, and even that may be
avoided, since he is wax in the hands of bribery; but the little sister
is more apt to save her knowledge for use upon a terrible occasion; and,
no matter what bribes she may accept, she is certain to tell her mother
everything. All in all, a young lover should arrange, if possible, to be
the only child of elderly parents; otherwise his mother and sister are
sure to know a great deal more about him than he knows that they know.

This was what made Jane's eyes so disturbing to William during lunch
that day. She ate quietly and competently, but all the while he was
conscious of her solemn and inscrutable gaze fixed upon him; and she
spoke not once. She could not have rendered herself more annoying,
especially as William was trying to treat her with silent scorn, for
nothing is more irksome to the muscles of the face than silent scorn,
when there is no means of showing it except by the expression. On the
other hand, Jane's inscrutability gave her no discomfort whatever. In
fact, inscrutability is about the most comfortable expression that a
person can wear, though the truth is that just now Jane was not really
inscrutable at all.

She was merely looking at William and thinking of Mr. Parcher.




IX

LITTLE SISTERS HAVE BIG EARS

The confidential talk between mother and daughter at noon was not
the last to take place that day. At nightfall--eight o'clock in this
pleasant season--Jane was saying her prayers beside her bed, while her
mother stood close by, waiting to put out the light.

“An' bless mamma and papa an'--” Jane murmured, coming to a pause.
“An'--an' bless Willie,” she added, with a little reluctance.

“Go on, dear,” said her mother. “You haven't finished.”

“I know it, mamma,” Jane looked up to say. “I was just thinkin' a
minute. I want to tell you about somep'm.”

“Finish your prayers first, Jane.”

Jane obeyed with a swiftness in which there was no intentional
irreverence. Then she jumped into bed and began a fresh revelation.

“It's about papa's clo'es, mamma.”

“What clothes of papa's? What do you mean, Jane?” asked Mrs. Baxter,
puzzled.

“The ones you couldn't find. The ones you been lookin' for 'most every
day.”

“You mean papa's evening clothes?”

“Yes'm,” said Jane. “Willie's got 'em on.”

“What!”

“Yes, he has!” Jane assured her with emphasis. “I bet you he's had 'em
on every single evening since Miss Pratt came to visit the Parchers!
Anyway, he's got 'em on now, 'cause I saw 'em.”

Mrs. Baxter bit her lip and frowned. “Are you sure, Jane?”

“Yes'm. I saw him in 'em.”

“How?”

“Well, I was in my bare feet after I got undressed--before you came
up-stairs--mamma, an' I was kind of walkin' around in the hall--”

“You shouldn't do that, Jane.”

“No'm. An' I heard Willie say somep'm kind of to himself, or like
deckamation. He was inside his room, but the door wasn't quite shut. He
started out once, but he went back for somep'm an' forgot to, I guess.
Anyway, I thought I better look an' see what was goin' on, mamma. So I
just kind of peeked in--”

“But you shouldn't do that, dear,” Mrs. Baxter said, musingly. “It isn't
really quite honorable.”

“No'm. Well, what you think he was doin'?” (Here Jane's voice betrayed
excitement and so did her eyes.) “He was standin' up there in papa's
clo'es before the lookin'-glass, an' first he'd lean his head over on
one side, an' then he'd lean it over on the other side, an' then he'd
bark, mamma.”

“He'd what?”

“Yes'm!” said Jane. “He'd give a little, teeny BARK, mamma--kind of like
a puppy, mamma.”

“What?” cried Mrs. Baxter.

“Yes'm, he did!” Jane asserted. “He did it four or five times. First
he'd lean his head way over on his shoulder like this--look, mamma!--an'
then he'd lean it way over the other shoulder, an' every time he'd do it
he'd bark. 'Berp-werp!' he'd say, mamma, just like that, only not loud
at all. He said, 'Berp-werp! BERP-WERP-WERP!' You could tell he meant
it for barkin', but it wasn't very good, mamma. What you think he meant,
mamma?”

“Heaven knows!” murmured the astonished mother.

“An' then,” Jane continued, “he quit barkin' all of a sudden, an' didn't
lean his head over any more, an' commenced actin' kind of solemn, an'
kind of whispered to himself. I think he was kind of pretendin' he was
talkin' to Miss Pratt, or at a party, maybe. Anyways, he spoke out loud
after while not just exactly LOUD, I mean, but anyway so's 't I could
hear what he said. Mamma--he said, 'Oh, my baby-talk lady!' just like
that, mamma. Listen, mamma, here's the way he said it: 'Oh, my baby-talk
lady!'”

Jane's voice, in this impersonation, became sufficiently soft and
tremulous to give Mrs. Baxter a fair idea of the tender yearning of the
original. “'OH, MY BABY-TALK LADY!'” cooed the terrible Jane.

“Mercy!” Mrs. Baxter exclaimed. “Perhaps it's no wonder Mr. Parcher--”
 She broke off abruptly, then inquired, “What did he do next, Jane?”

“Next,” said Jane, “he put the light out, an' I had to--well, I just
waited kind of squeeged up against the wall, an' he never saw me. He
went on out to the back stairs, an' went down the stairs tiptoe, mamma.
You know what I think, mamma? I think he goes out that way an' through
the kitchen on account of papa's clo'es.”

Mrs. Baxter paused, with her hand upon the key of the shaded electric
lamp. “I suppose so,” she said. “I think perhaps--” For a moment or
two she wrapped herself in thought. “Perhaps”--she repeated,
musingly--“perhaps we'll keep this just a secret between you and me for
a little while, Jane, and not say anything to papa about the clothes. I
don't think it will hurt them, and I suppose Willie feels they give
him a great advantage over the other boys--and papa uses them so very
little, especially since he's grown a wee bit stouter. Yes, it will be
our secret, Jane. We'll think it over till to-morrow.”

“Yes'm.”

Mrs. Baxter turned out the light, then came and kissed Jane in the dark.
“Good night, dear.”

“G' night, mamma.” But as Mrs. Baxter reached the door Jane's voice was
heard again.

“Mamma?”

“Yes?” Mrs. Baxter paused.

“Mamma,” Jane said, slowly, “I think--I think Mr. Parcher is a very nice
man. Mamma?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Mamma, what do you s'pose Willie barked at the lookin'-glass for?”

“That,” said Mrs. Baxter, “is beyond me. Young people and children do
the strangest things, Jane! And then, when they get to be middle-aged,
they forget all those strange things they did, and they can't understand
what the new young people--like you and Willie mean by the strange
things THEY do.”

“Yes'm. I bet _I_ know what he was barkin' for, mamma.”

“Well?”

“You know what I think? I think he was kind of practisin'. I think he
was practisin' how to bark at Mr. Parcher.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Baxter laughed. “Who ever could think of such a thing but
you, Jane! You go to sleep and forget your nonsense!”

Nevertheless, Jane might almost have been gifted with clairvoyance, her
preposterous idea came so close to the actual fact, for at that very
moment William was barking. He was not barking directly at Mr. Parcher,
it is true, but within a short distance of him and all too well within
his hearing.




X

MR. PARCHER AND LOVE

Mr. Parcher, that unhappy gentleman, having been driven indoors from his
own porch, had attempted to read Plutarch's Lives in the library, but,
owing to the adjacency of the porch and the summer necessity for open
windows, his escape spared only his eyes and not his suffering ears. The
house was small, being but half of a double one, with small rooms, and
the “parlor,” library, and dining-room all about equally exposed to the
porch which ran along the side of the house. Mr. Parcher had no refuge
except bed or the kitchen, and as he was troubled with chronic insomnia,
and the cook had callers in the kitchen, his case was desperate. Most
unfortunately, too, his reading-lamp, the only one in the house, was a
fixture near a window, and just beyond that window sat Miss Pratt and
William in sweet unconsciousness, while Miss Parcher entertained the
overflow (consisting of Mr. Johnnie Watson) at the other end of the
porch. Listening perforce to the conversation of the former couple
though “conversation” is far from the expression later used by Mr.
Parcher to describe what he heard--he found it impossible to sit
still in his chair. He jerked and twitched with continually increasing
restlessness; sometimes he gasped, and other times he moaned a little,
and there were times when he muttered huskily.

“Oh, cute-ums!” came the silvery voice of Miss Pratt from the likewise
silvery porch outside, underneath the summer moon. “Darlin' Flopit,
look! Ickle boy Baxter goin' make imitations of darlin' Flopit again.
See! Ickle boy Baxter puts head one side, then other side, just
like darlin' Flopit. Then barks just like darlin' Flopit! Ladies and
'entlemen, imitations of darlin' Flopit by ickle boy Baxter.”

“Berp-werp! Berp-werp!” came the voice of William Sylvanus Baxter.

And in the library Plutarch's Lives moved convulsively, while with
writhing lips Mr. Parcher muttered to himself.

“More, more!” cried Miss Pratt, clapping her hands. “Do it again, ickle
boy Baxter!”

“Berp-werp! Berp-werp-werp!”

“WORD!” muttered Mr. Parcher.

Miss Pratt's voice became surcharged with honeyed wonder. “How did he
learn such marv'lous, MARV'LOUS imitations of darlin' Flopit? He ought
to go on the big, big stage and be a really actor, oughtn't he, darlin'
Flopit? He could make milyums and milyums of dollardies, couldn't he,
darlin' Flopit?”

William's modest laugh disclaimed any great ambition for himself in this
line. “Oh, I always could think up imitations of animals; things like
that--but I hardly would care to--to adop' the stage for a career.
Would--you?” (There was a thrill in his voice when he pronounced the
ineffably significant word “you.”)

Miss Pratt became intensely serious.

“It's my DREAM!” she said.

William, seated upon a stool at her feet, gazed up at the amber head,
divinely splashed by the rain of moonlight. The fire with which she
spoke stirred him as few things had ever stirred him. He knew she had
just revealed a side of herself which she reserved for only the chosen
few who were capable of understanding her, and he fell into a hushed
rapture. It seemed to him that there was a sacredness about this moment,
and he sought vaguely for something to say that would live up to it and
not be out of keeping. Then, like an inspiration, there came into his
head some words he had read that day and thought beautiful. He had found
them beneath an illustration in a magazine, and he spoke them almost
instinctively.

“It was wonderful of you to say that to me,” he said. “I shall never
forget it!”

“It's my DREAM!” Miss Pratt exclaimed, again, with the same enthusiasm.
“It's my DREAM.”

“You would make a glorious actress!” he said.

At that her mood changed. She laughed a laugh like a sweet little girl's
laugh (not Jane's) and, setting her rocking-chair in motion, cuddled the
fuzzy white doglet in her arms. “Ickle boy Baxter t'yin' flatterbox us,
tunnin' Flopit! No'ty, no'ty flatterbox!”

“No, no!” William insisted, earnestly. “I mean it. But--but--”

“But whatcums?”

“What do you think about actors and actresses making love to each other
on the stage? Do you think they have to really feel it, or do they just
pretend?”

“Well,” said Miss Pratt, weightily, “sometimes one way, sometimes the
other.”

William's gravity became more and more profound. “Yes, but how can they
pretend like that? Don't you think love is a sacred thing, Cousin Lola?”

Fictitious sisterships, brotherships, and cousinships are devices to
push things along, well known to seventeen and even more advanced ages.
On the wonderful evening of their first meeting William and Miss Pratt
had cozily arranged to be called, respectively, “Ickle boy Baxter” and
“Cousin Lola.” (Thus they had broken down the tedious formalities of
their first twenty minutes together.)

“Don't you think love is sacred?” he repeated in the deepest tone of
which his vocal cords were capable.

“Ess,” said Miss Pratt.

“_I_ do!” William was emphatic. “I think love is the most sacred thing
there is. I don't mean SOME kinds of love. I mean REAL love. You take
some people, I don't believe they ever know what real love means. They
TALK about it, maybe, but they don't understand it. Love is something
nobody can understand unless they feel it and and if they don't
understand it they don't feel it. Don't YOU think so?”

“Ess.”

“Love,” William continued, his voice lifting and thrilling to the great
theme--“love is something nobody can ever have but one time in their
lives, and if they don't have it then, why prob'ly they never will.
Now, if a man REALLY loves a girl, why he'd do anything in the world she
wanted him to. Don't YOU think so?”

“Ess, 'deedums!” said the silvery voice.

“But if he didn't, then he wouldn't,” said William vehemently. “But when
a man really loves a girl he will. Now, you take a man like that and
he can generally do just about anything the girl he loves wants him
to. Say, f'rinstance, she wants him to love her even more than he does
already--or almost anything like that--and supposin' she asks him to.
Well, he would go ahead and do it. If they really loved each other he
would!”

He paused a moment, then in a lowered tone he said, “I think REAL love
is sacred, don't you?”

“Ess.”

“Don't you think love is the most sacred thing there is--that is, if
it's REAL love?”

“Ess.”

“_I_ do,” said William, warmly. “I--I'm glad you feel like that, because
I think real love is the kind nobody could have but just once in their
lives, but if it isn't REAL love, why--why most people never have it at
all, because--” He paused, seeming to seek for the exact phrase which
would express his meaning. “--Because the REAL love a man feels for a
girl and a girl for a man, if they REALLY love each other, and, you look
at a case like that, of course they would BOTH love each other, or it
wouldn't be real love well, what _I_ say is, if it's REAL love, well,
it's--it's sacred, because I think that kind of love is always sacred.
Don't you think love is sacred if it's the real thing?”

“Ess,” said Miss Pratt. “Do Flopit again. Be Flopit!”

“Berp-werp! Berp-werp-werp.”

And within the library an agonized man writhed and muttered:

“WORD! WORD! WORD--”

This hoarse repetition had become almost continuous.

... But out on the porch, that little, jasmine-scented bower in
Arcady where youth cried to youth and golden heads were haloed in the
moonshine, there fell a silence. Not utter silence, for out there an
ethereal music sounded constantly, unheard and forgotten by older ears.
Time was when the sly playwrights used “incidental music” in their
dramas; they knew that an audience would be moved so long as the music
played; credulous while that crafty enchantment lasted. And when the
galled Mr. Parcher wondered how those young people out on the porch
could listen to each other and not die, it was because he did not
hear and had forgotten the music that throbs in the veins of youth.
Nevertheless, it may not be denied that despite his poor memory this man
of fifty was deserving of a little sympathy.

It was William who broke the silence. “How--” he began, and his voice
trembled a little. “How--how do you--how do you think of me when I'm not
with you?”

“Think nice-cums,” Miss Pratt responded. “Flopit an' me think
nice-cums.”

“No,” said William; “I mean what name do you have for me when you're
when you're thinking about me?”

Miss Pratt seemed to be puzzled, perhaps justifiably, and she made a
cooing sound of interrogation.

“I mean like this,” William explained. “F'rinstance, when you first
came, I always thought of you as 'Milady'--when I wrote that poem, you
know.”

“Ess. Boo'fums.”

“But now I don't,” he said. “Now I think of you by another name when I'm
alone. It--it just sort of came to me. I was kind of just sitting around
this afternoon, and I didn't know I was thinking about anything at all
very much, and then all of a sudden I said it to myself out loud. It was
about as strange a thing as I ever knew of. Don't YOU think so?”

“Ess. It uz dest WEIRD!” she answered. “What ARE dat pitty names?”

“I called you,” said William, huskily and reverently, “I called you 'My
Baby-Talk Lady.'”

BANG!

They were startled by a crash from within the library; a heavy weight
seemed to have fallen (or to have been hurled) a considerable distance.
Stepping to the window, William beheld a large volume lying in a
distorted attitude at the foot of the wall opposite to that in which the
reading-lamp was a fixture. But of all human life the room was empty;
for Mr. Parcher had given up, and was now hastening to his bed in the
last faint hope of saving his reason.

His symptoms, however, all pointed to its having fled; and his wife,
looking up from some computations in laundry charges, had but a vision
of windmill gestures as he passed the door of her room. Then, not only
for her, but for the inoffensive people who lived in the other half of
the house, the closing of his own door took place in a really memorable
manner.

William, gazing upon the fallen Plutarch, had just offered the
explanation, “Somebody must 'a' thrown it at a bug or something, I
guess,” when the second explosion sent its reverberations through the
house.

“My doodness!” Miss Pratt exclaimed, jumping up.

William laughed reassuringly, remaining calm. “It's only a door blew
shut up-stairs,” he said “Let's sit down again--just the way we were?”

Unfortunately for him, Mr. Joe Bullitt now made his appearance at the
other end of the porch. Mr. Bullitt, though almost a year younger than
either William or Johnnie Watson, was of a turbulent and masterful
disposition. Moreover, in regard to Miss Pratt, his affections were
in as ardent a state as those of his rivals, and he lacked Johnnie's
meekness. He firmly declined to be shunted by Miss Parcher, who was
trying to favor William's cause, according to a promise he had won of
her by strong pleading. Regardless of her efforts, Mr. Bullitt descended
upon William and his Baby-Talk-Lady, and received from the latter a
honeyed greeting, somewhat to the former's astonishment and not at all
to his pleasure.

“Oh, goody-cute!” cried Miss Pratt. “Here's big Bruvva Josie-Joe!” And
she lifted her little dog close to Mr. Bullitt's face, guiding one of
Flopit's paws with her fingers. “Stroke big Bruvva Josie-Joe's pint
teeks, darlin' Flopit.” (Josie-Joe's pink cheeks were indicated by the
expression “pint teeks,” evidently, for her accompanying action was to
pass Flopit's paw lightly over those glowing surfaces.) “'At's nice!”
 she remarked. “Stroke him gently, p'eshus Flopit, an' nen we'll coax him
to make pitty singin' for us, like us did yestiday.”

She turned to William.

“COAX him to make pitty singin'? I LOVE his voice--I'm dest CRAZY over
it. Isn't oo?”

William's passion for Mr. Bullitt's voice appeared to be under control.
He laughed coldly, almost harshly. “Him sing?” he said. “Has he been
tryin' to sing around HERE? I wonder the family didn't call for the
police!”

It was to be seen that Mr. Bullitt did not relish the sally. “Well, they
will,” he retorted, “if you ever spring one o' your solos on 'em!” And
turning to Miss Pratt, he laughed loudly and bitterly. “You ought to
hear Silly Bill sing--some time when you don't mind goin' to bed sick
for a couple o' days!”

Symptoms of truculence at once became alarmingly pronounced on both
sides. William was naturally incensed, and as for Mr. Bullitt, he had
endured a great deal from William every evening since Miss Pratt's
arrival. William's evening clothes were hard enough for both Mr. Watson
and Mr. Bullitt to bear, without any additional insolence on the part
of the wearer. Big Bruvva Josie-Joe took a step toward his enemy and
breathed audibly.

“Let's ALL sing,” the tactful Miss Pratt proposed, hastily. “Come on,
May and Cousin Johnnie-Jump-Up,” she called to Miss Parcher and Mr.
Watson. “Singin'-school, dirls an' boys! Singin'-school! Ding, ding!
Singin'-school bell's a-wingin'!”

The diversion was successful. Miss Parcher and Mr. Watson joined the
other group with alacrity, and the five young people were presently
seated close together upon the steps of the porch, sending their voices
out upon the air and up to Mr. Parcher's window in the song they found
loveliest that summer.

Miss Pratt carried the air. William also carried it part of the time
and hunted for it the rest of the time, though never in silence. Miss
Parcher “sang alto,” Mr. Bullitt “sang bass,” and Mr. Watson “sang
tenor”--that is, he sang as high as possible, often making the top sound
of a chord and always repeating the last phrase of each line before the
others finished it. The melody was a little too sweet, possibly; while
the singers thought so highly of the words that Mr. Parcher missed not
one, especially as the vocal rivalry between Josie-Joe and Ickle Boy
Baxter incited each of them to prevent Miss Pratt from hearing the
other.

William sang loudest of all; Mr. Parcher had at no time any difficulty
in recognizing his voice.

          “Oh, I love my love in the morning
               And I love my love at night,
          I love my love in the dawning,
               And when the stars are bright.
          Some may love the sunshine,
               Others may love the dew.
          Some may love the raindrops,
               But I love only you-OO-oo!
                    By the stars up above
                    It is you I luh-HUV!
               Yes, _I_ love own-LAY you!”

They sang it four times; then Mr. Bullitt sang his solo, “Tell her, O
Golden Moon, how I Adore her,” William following with “The violate loves
the cowslip, but _I_ love YEW,” and after that they all sang, “Oh, I
love my love in the morning,” again.

All this while that they sang of love, Mr. Parcher was moving to and fro
upon his bed, not more than eighteen feet in an oblique upward-slanting
line from the heads of the serenaders. Long, long he tossed, listening
to the young voices singing of love; long, long he thought of love, and
many, many times he spoke of it aloud, though he was alone in the room.
And in thus speaking of it, he would give utterance to phrases and
words probably never before used in connection with love since the world
began.

His thoughts, and, at intervals, his mutterings, continued to be active
far into the night, long after the callers had gone, and though his
household and the neighborhood were at rest, with never a katydid
outside to rail at the waning moon. And by a coincidence not more
singular than most coincidences, it happened that at just about the time
he finally fell asleep, a young lady at no great distance from him awoke
to find her self thinking of him.




XI

BEGINNING A TRUE FRIENDSHIP

This was Miss Jane Baxter. She opened her eyes upon the new-born day,
and her first thoughts were of Mr. Parcher. That is, he was already
in her mind when she awoke, a circumstance to be accounted for on the
ground that his conversation, during her quiet convalescence in his
library, had so fascinated her that in all likelihood she had been
dreaming of him. Then, too, Jane and Mr. Parcher had a bond in common,
though Mr. Parcher did not know it. Not without result had William
repeated Miss Pratt's inquiry in Jane's hearing: “Who IS that curious
child?” Jane had preserved her sang-froid, but the words remained with
her, for she was one of those who ponder and retain in silence.

She thought almost exclusively of Mr. Parcher until breakfast-time, and
resumed her thinking of him at intervals during the morning. Then, in
the afternoon, a series of quiet events not unconnected with William's
passion caused her to think of Mr. Parcher more poignantly than ever;
nor was her mind diverted to a different channel by another confidential
conversation with her mother. Who can say, then, that it was not by
design that she came face to face with Mr. Parcher on the public highway
at about five o'clock that afternoon? Everything urges the belief that
she deliberately set herself in his path.

Mr. Parcher was walking home from his office, and he walked slowly,
gulping from time to time, as he thought of the inevitable evening
before him. His was not a rugged constitution, and for the last
fortnight or so he had feared that it was giving way altogether. Each
evening he felt that he was growing weaker, and sometimes he thought
piteously that he might go away for a while. He did not much care where,
though what appealed to him most, curiously enough, was not the thought
of the country, with the flowers and little birds; no, what allured him
was the idea that perhaps he could find lodgment for a time in an Old
People's Home, where the minimum age for inmates was about eighty.

Walking more and more slowly, as he approached the dwelling he had once
thought of as home, he became aware of a little girl in a checkered
dress approaching him at a gait varied by the indifferent behavior of
a barrel-hoop which she was disciplining with a stick held in her
right hand. When the hoop behaved well, she came ahead rapidly; when it
affected to be intoxicated, which was most often its whim, she zigzagged
with it, and gained little ground. But all the while, and without
reference to what went on concerning the hoop, she slowly and
continuously fed herself (with her left hand) small, solemnly relished
bites of a slice of bread-and-butter covered with apple sauce and
powdered sugar.

Mr. Parcher looked upon her, and he shivered slightly; for he knew her
to be Willie Baxter's sister.

Unaware of the emotion she produced in him, Jane checked her hoop and
halted.

“G'd afternoon, Mister Parcher,” she said, gravely.

“Good afternoon,” he returned, without much spirit.

Jane looked up at him trustfully and with a strange, unconscious
fondness. “You goin' home now, Mr. Parcher?” she asked, turning to
walk at his side. She had suspended the hoop over her left arm and
transferred the bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar to her right,
so that she could eat even more conveniently than before.

“I suppose so,” he murmured.

“My brother Willie's been at your house all afternoon,” she remarked.

He repeated, “I suppose so,” but in a tone which combined the vocal
tokens of misery and of hopeless animosity.

“He just went home,” said Jane. “I was 'cross the street from your
house, but I guess he didn't see me. He kept lookin' back at your house.
Miss Pratt was on the porch.”

“I suppose so.” This time it was a moan.

Jane proceeded to give him some information. “My brother Willie isn't
comin' back to your house to-night, but he doesn't know it yet.”

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Parcher.

“Willie isn't goin' to spend any more evenings at your house at all,”
 said Jane, thoughtfully. “He isn't, but he doesn't know it yet.”

Mr. Parcher gazed fixedly at the wonderful child, and something like
a ray of sunshine flickered over his seamed and harried face. “Are you
SURE he isn't?” he said. “What makes you think so?”

“I know he isn't,” said demure Jane. “It's on account of somep'm I told
mamma.”

And upon this a gentle glow began to radiate throughout Mr. Parcher. A
new feeling budded within his bosom; he was warmly attracted to Jane.
She was evidently a child to be cherished, and particularly to be
encouraged in the line of conduct she seemed to have adopted. He wished
the Bullitt and Watson families each had a little girl like this. Still,
if what she said of William proved true, much had been gained and life
might be tolerable, after all.

“He'll come in the afternoons, I guess,” said Jane. “But you aren't
home then, Mr. Parcher, except late like you were that day of the
Sunday-school class. It was on account of what you said that day. I told
mamma.”

“Told your mamma what?”

“What you said.”

Mr. Parcher's perplexity continued. “What about?”

“About Willie. YOU know!” Jane smiled fraternally.

“No, I don't.”

“It was when I was layin' in the liberry, that day of the Sunday-school
class,” Jane told him. “You an' Mrs. Parcher was talkin' in there about
Miss Pratt an' Willie an' everything.”

“Good heavens!” Mr. Parcher, summoning his memory, had placed the
occasion and Jane together. “Did you HEAR all that?”

“Yes.” Jane nodded. “I told mamma all what you said.”

“Murder!”

“Well,” said Jane, “I guess it's good I did, because look--that's the
very reason mamma did somep'm so's he can't come any more except in
daytime. I guess she thought Willie oughtn't to behave so's't you said
so many things about him like that; so to-day she did somep'm, an' now
he can't come any more to behave that loving way of Miss Pratt that you
said you would be in the lunatic asylum if he didn't quit. But he hasn't
found it out yet.”

“Found what out, please?” asked Mr. Parcher, feeling more affection for
Jane every moment.

“He hasn't found out he can't come back to your house to-night; an' he
can't come back to-morrow night, nor day-after-to-morrow night, nor--”

“Is it because your mamma is going to tell him he can't?”

“No, Mr. Parcher. Mamma says he's too old--an' she said she didn't like
to, anyway. She just DID somep'm.”

“What? What did she do?”

“It's a secret,” said Jane. “I could tell you the first part of it--up
to where the secret begins, I expect.”

“Do!” Mr. Parcher urged.

“Well, it's about somep'm Willie's been WEARIN',” Jane began, moving
closer to him as they slowly walked onward. “I can't tell you what they
were, because that's the secret--but he had 'em on him every evening
when he came to see Miss Pratt, but they belong to papa, an' papa
doesn't know a word about it. Well, one evening papa wanted to put 'em
on, because he had a right to, Mr. Parcher, an' Willie didn't have any
right to at all, but mamma couldn't find 'em; an' she rummidged an'
rummidged 'most all next day an' pretty near every day since then an'
never did find 'em, until don't you believe I saw Willie inside of 'em
only last night! He was startin' over to your house to see Miss Pratt in
'em! So I told mamma, an' she said it 'd haf to be a secret, so that's
why I can't tell you what they were. Well, an' then this afternoon,
early, I was with her, an' she said, long as I had told her the secret
in the first place, I could come in Willie's room with her, an' we both
were already in there anyway, 'cause I was kind of thinkin' maybe she'd
go in there to look for 'em, Mr. Parcher--”

“I see,” he said, admiringly. “I see.”

“Well, they were under Willie's window-seat, all folded up; an' mamma
said she wondered what she better do, an' she was worried because she
didn't like to have Willie behave so's you an' Mrs. Parcher thought that
way about him. So she said the--the secret--what Willie wears, you
know, but they're really papa's an' aren't Willie's any more'n they're
MINE--well, she said the secret was gettin' a little teeny bit too tight
for papa, but she guessed they--I mean the secret--she said she guessed
it was already pretty loose for Willie; so she wrapped it up, an' I
went with her, an' we took 'em to a tailor, an' she told him to make 'em
bigger, for a surprise for papa, 'cause then they'll fit him again, Mr.
Parcher. She said he must make 'em a whole lot bigger. She said he must
let 'em way, WAY out! So I guess Willie would look too funny in 'em
after they're fixed; an' anyway, Mr. Parcher, the secret won't be home
from the tailor's for two weeks, an' maybe by that time Miss Pratt'll be
gone.”

They had reached Mr. Parcher's gate; he halted and looked down fondly
upon this child who seemed to have read his soul. “Do you honestly think
so?” he asked.

“Well, anyway, Mr. Parcher,” said Jane, “mamma said--well, she said
she's sure Willie wouldn't come here in the evening any more when YOU're
at home, Mr. Parcher--'cause after he'd been wearin' the secret every
night this way he wouldn't like to come and not have the secret on.
Mamma said the reason he would feel like that was because he was
seventeen years old. An' she isn't goin' to tell him anything about it,
Mr. Parcher. She said that's the best way.”

Her new friend nodded and seemed to agree. “I suppose that's what you
meant when you said he wasn't coming back but didn't know it yet?”

“Yes, Mr. Parcher.”

He rested an elbow upon the gate-post, gazing down with ever-increasing
esteem. “Of course I know your last name,” he said, “but I'm afraid I've
forgotten your other one.”

“It's Jane.”

“Jane,” said Mr. Parcher, “I should like to do something for you.”

Jane looked down, and with eyes modestly lowered she swallowed the last
fragment of the bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar which had
been the constantly evanescent companion of their little walk together.
She was not mercenary; she had sought no reward.

“Well, I guess I must run home,” she said. And with one lift of her
eyes to his and a shy laugh--laughter being a rare thing for Jane--she
scampered quickly to the corner and was gone.

But though she cared for no reward, the extraordinary restlessness of
William, that evening, after dinner, must at least have been of great
interest to her. He ascended to his own room directly from the table,
but about twenty minutes later came down to the library, where Jane
was sitting (her privilege until half after seven) with her father and
mother. William looked from one to the other of his parents and seemed
about to speak, but did not do so. Instead, he departed for the upper
floor again and presently could be heard moving about energetically in
various parts of the house, a remote thump finally indicating that he
was doing something with a trunk in the attic.

After that he came down to the library again and once more seemed about
to speak, but did not. Then he went up-stairs again, and came down
again, and he was still repeating this process when Jane's time-limit
was reached and she repaired conscientiously to her little bed. Her
mother came to hear her prayers and to turn out the light; and--when
Mrs. Baxter had passed out into the hall, after that, Jane heard
her speaking to William, who was now conducting what seemed to be
excavations on a serious scale in his own room.

“Oh, Willie, perhaps I didn't tell you, but--you remember I'd been
missing papa's evening clothes and looking everywhere for days and
days?”

“Ye--es,” huskily from William.

“Well, I found them! And where do you suppose I'd put them? I found
them under your window-seat. Can you think of anything more absurd than
putting them there and then forgetting it? I took them to the tailor's
to have them let out. They were getting too tight for papa, but they'll
be all right for him when the tailor sends them back.”

What the stricken William gathered from this it is impossible to state
with accuracy; probably he mixed some perplexity with his emotions.
Certainly he was perplexed the following evening at dinner.

Jane did not appear at the table. “Poor child! she's sick in bed,” Mrs.
Baxter explained to her husband. “I was out, this afternoon, and she ate
nearly ALL of a five-pound box of candy.”

Both the sad-eyed William and his father were dumfounded. “Where on
earth did she get a five-pound box of candy?” Mr. Baxter demanded.

“I'm afraid Jane has begun her first affair,” said Mrs. Baxter. “A
gentleman sent it to her.”

“What gentleman?” gasped William.

And in his mother's eyes, as they slowly came to rest on his in reply,
he was aware of an inscrutability strongly remindful of that inscrutable
look of Jane's.

“Mr. Parcher,” she said, gently.




XII

PROGRESS OF THE SYMPTOMS

Mrs. BAXTER'S little stroke of diplomacy had gone straight to the mark,
she was a woman of insight. For every reason she was well content to
have her son spend his evenings at home, though it cannot be claimed
that his presence enlivened the household, his condition being one of
strange, trancelike irascibility. Evening after evening passed, while
he sat dreaming painfully of Mr. Parcher's porch; but in the daytime,
though William did not literally make hay while the sun shone, he at
least gathered a harvest somewhat resembling hay in general character.

Thus:

One afternoon, having locked his door to secure himself against
intrusion on the part of his mother or Jane, William seated himself at
his writing-table, and from a drawer therein took a small cardboard box,
which he uncovered, placing the contents in view before him upon the
table. (How meager, how chilling a word is “contents”!) In the box were:

A faded rose.

Several other faded roses, disintegrated into leaves.

Three withered “four-leaf clovers.”

A white ribbon still faintly smelling of violets.

A small silver shoe-buckle.

A large pearl button.

A small pearl button.

A tortoise-shell hair-pin.

A cross-section from the heel of a small slipper.

A stringy remnant, probably once an improvised wreath of daisies.

Four or five withered dandelions.

Other dried vegetation, of a nature now indistinguishable.

William gazed reverently upon this junk of precious souvenirs; then
from the inner pocket of his coat he brought forth, warm and crumpled,
a lumpish cluster of red geranium blossoms, still aromatic and not quite
dead, though naturally, after three hours of such intimate confinement,
they wore an unmistakable look of suffering. With a tenderness which
his family had never observed in him since that piteous day in his fifth
year when he tried to mend his broken doll, William laid the geranium
blossoms in the cardboard box among the botanical and other relics.

His gentle eyes showed what the treasures meant to him, and yet it
was strange that they should have meant so much, because the source of
supply was not more than a quarter of a mile distant, and practically
inexhaustible. Miss Pratt had now been a visitor at the Parchers'
for something less than five weeks, but she had made no mention of
prospective departure, and there was every reason to suppose that she
meant to remain all summer. And as any foliage or anything whatever that
she touched, or that touched her, was thenceforth suitable for William's
museum, there appeared to be some probability that autumn might see it
so enlarged as to lack that rarity in the component items which is the
underlying value of most collections.

William's writing-table was beside an open window, through which came an
insistent whirring, unagreeable to his mood; and, looking down upon the
sunny lawn, he beheld three lowly creatures. One was Genesis; he was
cutting the grass. Another was Clematis; he had assumed a transient
attitude, curiously triangular, in order to scratch his ear, the while
his anxious eyes never wavered from the third creature.

This was Jane. In one hand she held a little stack of sugar-sprinkled
wafers, which she slowly but steadily depleted, unconscious of the
increasingly earnest protest, at last nearing agony, in the eyes of
Clematis. Wearing unaccustomed garments of fashion and festivity,
Jane stood, in speckless, starchy white and a blue sash, watching
the lawn-mower spout showers of grass as the powerful Genesis easily
propelled it along over lapping lanes, back and forth, across the yard.

From a height of illimitable loftiness the owner of the cardboard
treasury looked down upon the squat commonplaceness of those three
lives. The condition of Jane and Genesis and Clematis seemed almost
laughably pitiable to him, the more so because they were unaware of it.
They breathed not the starry air that William breathed, but what did it
matter to them? The wretched things did not even know that they meant
nothing to Miss Pratt!

Clematis found his ear too pliable for any great solace from his foot,
but he was not disappointed; he had expected little, and his thoughts
were elsewhere. Rising, he permitted his nose to follow his troubled
eyes, with the result that it touched the rim of the last wafer in
Jane's external possession.

This incident annoyed William. “Look there!” he called from the window.
“You mean to eat that cake after the dog's had his face on it?”

Jane remained placid. “It wasn't his face.”

“Well, if it wasn't his face, I'd like to know what--”

“It wasn't his face,” Jane repeated. “It was his nose. It wasn't all of
his nose touched it, either. It was only a little outside piece of his
nose.”

“Well, are you going to eat that cake, I ask you?”

Jane broke off a small bit of the wafer. She gave the bit to Clematis
and slowly ate what remained, continuing to watch Genesis and apparently
unconscious of the scorching gaze from the window.

“I never saw anything as disgusting as long as I've lived!” William
announced. “I wouldn't 'a' believed it if anybody'd told me a sister of
mine would eat after--”

“I didn't,” said Jane. “I like Clematis, anyway.”

“Ye gods!” her brother cried. “Do you think that makes it any better?
And, BY the WAY,” he continued, in a tone of even greater severity, “I'd
a like to know where you got those cakes. Where'd you get 'em, I'd just
like to inquire?”

“In the pantry.” Jane turned and moved toward the house. “I'm goin' in
for some more, now.”

William uttered a cry; these little cakes were sacred. His mother,
growing curious to meet a visiting lady of whom (so to speak) she had
heard much and thought more, had asked May Parcher to bring her guest
for iced tea, that afternoon. A few others of congenial age had been
invited: there was to be a small matinee, in fact, for the honor and
pleasure of the son of the house, and the cakes of Jane's onslaught
were part of Mrs. Baxter's preparations. There was no telling where
Jane would stop; it was conceivable that Miss Pratt herself might go
waferless.

William returned the cardboard box to its drawer with reverent haste;
then, increasing the haste, but dropping the reverence, he hied himself
to the pantry with such advantage of longer legs that within the minute
he and the wafers appeared in conjunction before his mother, who was
arranging fruit and flowers upon a table in the “living-room.”

William entered in the stained-glass attitude of one bearing gifts.
Overhead, both hands supported a tin pan, well laden with small
cakes and wafers, for which Jane was silently but repeatedly and
systematically jumping. Even under the stress of these efforts her
expression was cool and collected; she maintained the self-possession
that was characteristic of her.

Not so with William; his cheeks were flushed, his eyes indignant. “You
see what this child is doing?” he demanded. “Are you going to let her
ruin everything?”

“Ruin?” Mrs. Baxter repeated, absently, refreshing with fair water a
bowl of flowers upon the table. “Ruin?”

“Yes, ruin!” William was hotly emphatic, “If you don't do something with
her it 'll all be ruined before Miss Pr-- before they even get here!”

Mrs. Baxter laughed. “Set the pan down, Willie.”

“Set it DOWN?” he echoed, incredulously “With that child in the room and
grabbing like--”

“There!” Mrs. Baxter took the pan from him, placed it upon a chair, and
with the utmost coolness selected five wafers and gave them to Jane.
“I'd already promised her she could have five more. You know the doctor
said Jane's digestion was the finest he'd ever misunderstood. They won't
hurt her at all, Willie.”

This deliberate misinterpretation of his motives made it difficult for
William to speak. “Do YOU think,” he began, hoarsely, “do you THINK--”

“They're so small, too,” Mrs. Baxter went on. “SHE probably wouldn't be
sick if she ate them all.”

“My heavens!” he burst forth. “Do you think I was worrying about--” He
broke off, unable to express himself save by a few gestures of despair.
Again finding his voice, and a great deal of it, he demanded: “Do you
realize that Miss PRATT will be here within less than half an hour? What
do you suppose she'd think of the people of this town if she was invited
out, expecting decent treatment, and found two-thirds of the cakes eaten
up before she got there, and what was left of 'em all mauled and pawed
over and crummy and chewed-up lookin' from some wretched CHILD?” Here
William became oratorical, but not with marked effect, since Jane
regarded him with unmoved eyes, while Mrs. Baxter continued to be mildly
preoccupied in arranging the table. In fact, throughout this episode
in controversy the ladies' party had not only the numerical but the
emotional advantage. Obviously, the approach of Miss Pratt was not to
them what it was to William. “I tell you,” he declaimed;--“yes, I tell
you that it wouldn't take much of this kind of thing to make Miss Pratt
think the people of this town were--well, it wouldn't take much to make
her think the people of this town hadn't learned much of how to
behave in society and were pretty uncilivized!” He corrected himself.
“Uncivilized! And to think Miss Pratt has to find that out in MY house!
To think--”

“Now, Willie,” said Mrs. Baxter, gently, “you'd better go up and brush
your hair again before your friends come. You mustn't let yourself get
so excited.”

“'Excited!'” he cried, incredulously. “Do you think I'm EXCITED?
Ye gods!” He smote his hands together and, in his despair of her
intelligence, would have flung himself down upon a chair, but was
arrested half-way by simultaneous loud outcries from his mother and
Jane.

“Don't sit on the CAKES!” they both screamed.

Saving himself and the pan of wafers by a supreme contortion at the last
instant, William decided to remain upon his feet. “What do I care for
the cakes?” he demanded, contemptuously, beginning to pace the floor.
“It's the question of principle I'm talking about! Do you think it's
right to give the people of this town a poor name when strangers like
Miss PRATT come to vis--”

“Willie!” His mother looked at him hopelessly. “Do go and brush your
hair. If you could see how you've tousled it you would.”

He gave her a dazed glance and strode from the room.

Jane looked after him placidly. “Didn't he talk funny!” she murmured.

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Baxter. She shook her head and uttered the
enigmatic words, “They do.”

“I mean Willie, mamma,” said Jane. “If it's anything about Miss Pratt.
he always talks awful funny. Don't you think Willie talks awful funny if
it's anything about Miss Pratt, mamma?”

“Yes, but--”

“What, mamma?” Jane asked as her mother paused.

“Well--it happens. People do get like that at his age, Jane.”

“Does everybody?”

“No, I suppose not everybody. Just some.”

Jane's interest was roused. “Well, do those that do, mamma,” she
inquired, “do they all act like Willie?”

“No,” said Mrs. Baxter. “That's the trouble; you can't tell what's
coming.”

Jane nodded. “I think I know,” she said. “You mean Willie--”

William himself interrupted her. He returned violently to the doorway,
his hair still tousled, and, standing upon the threshold, said, sternly:

“What is that child wearing her best dress for?”

“Willie!” Mrs. Baxter cried. “Go brush your hair!”

“I wish to know what that child is all dressed up for?” he insisted.

“To please you! Don't you want her to look her best at your tea?”

“I thought that was it!” he cried, and upon this confirmation of his
worst fears he did increased violence to his rumpled hair. “I suspected
it, but I wouldn't 'a' believed it! You mean to let this child--you
mean to let--” Here his agitation affected his throat and his utterance
became clouded. A few detached phrases fell from him: “--Invite MY
friends--children's party--ye gods!--think Miss Pratt plays dolls--”

“Jane will be very good,” his mother said. “I shouldn't think of not
having her, Willie, and you needn't bother about your friends; they'll
be very glad to see her. They all know her, except Miss Pratt, perhaps,
and--” Mrs. Baxter paused; then she asked, absently: “By the way,
haven't I heard somewhere that she likes pretending to be a little girl,
herself?”

“WHAT!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Baxter, remaining calm; “I'm sure I've heard somewhere
that she likes to talk 'baby-talk.'”

Upon this a tremor passed over William, after which he became rigid.
“You ask a lady to your house,” he began, “and even before she gets
here, before you've even seen her, you pass judgment upon one of
the--one of the noblest--”

“Good gracious! _I_ haven't 'passed judgment.' If she does talk
'baby-talk,' I imagine she does it very prettily, and I'm sure I've
no objection. And if she does do it, why should you be insulted by my
mentioning it?”

“It was the way you said it,” he informed her, icily.

“Good gracious! I just said it!” Mrs. Baxter laughed, and then,
probably a little out of patience with him, she gave way to that innate
mischievousness in such affairs which is not unknown to her sex. “You
see, Willie, if she pretends to be a cunning little girl, it will be
helpful to Jane to listen and learn how.”

William uttered a cry; he knew that he was struck, but he was not sure
how or where. He was left with a blank mind and no repartee. Again he
dashed from the room.

In the hall, near the open front door, he came to a sudden halt,
and Mrs. Baxter and Jane heard him calling loudly to the industrious
Genesis:

“Here! You go cut the grass in the back yard, and for Heaven's sake,
take that dog with you!”

“Grass awready cut roun' back,” responded the amiable voice of Genesis,
while the lawnmower ceased not to whir. “Cut all 'at back yod 's
mawnin'.”

“Well, you can't cut the front yard now. Go around in the back yard and
take that dog with you.”

“Nemmine 'bout 'at back yod! Ole Clem ain' trouble nobody.”

“You hear what I tell you?” William shouted. “You do what I say and you
do it quick!”

Genesis laughed gaily. “I got my grass to cut!”

“You decline to do what I command you?” William roared.

“Yes, indeedy! Who pay me my wages? 'At's MY boss. You' ma say,
'Genesis, you git all 'at lawn mowed b'fo' sundown.' No, suh! Nee'n'
was'e you' bref on me, 'cause I'm got all MY time good an' took up!”

Once more William presented himself fatefully to his mother and Jane.
“May I just kindly ask you to look out in the front yard?”

“I'm familiar with it, Willie,” Mrs. Baxter returned, a little wearily.

“I mean I want you to look at Genesis.”

“I'm familiar with his appearance, too,” she said. “Why in the world do
you mind his cutting the grass?”

William groaned. “Do you honestly want guests coming to this house
to see that awful old darky out there and know that HE'S the kind of
servants we employ? Ye gods!”

“Why, Genesis is just a neighborhood outdoors darky, Willie; he works
for half a dozen families besides us. Everybody in this part of town
knows him.”

“Yes,” he cried, “but a lady that didn't live here wouldn't. Ye gods!
What do you suppose she WOULD think? You know what he's got on!”

“It's a sort of sleeveless jersey he wears, Willie, I think.”

“No, you DON'T think that!” he cried, with great bitterness. “You know
it's not a jersey! You know perfectly well what it is, and yet you
expect to keep him out there when--when one of the one of the nobl--when
my friends arrive! And they'll think that's our DOG out there, won't
they? When intelligent people come to a house and see a dog sitting out
in front, they think it's the family in the house's dog, don't they?”
 William's condition becoming more and more disordered, he paced the
room, while his agony rose to a climax. “Ye gods! What do you think Miss
Pratt will think of the people of this town, when she's invited to meet
a few of my friends and the first thing she sees is a nigger in his
undershirt? What 'll she think when she finds that child's eaten up half
the food, and the people have to explain that the dog in the front
yard belongs to the darky--” He interrupted himself with a groan: “And
prob'ly she wouldn't believe it. Anybody'd SAY they didn't own a dog
like that! And that's what you want her to see, before she even gets
inside the house! Instead of a regular gardener in livery like we ought
to have, and a bulldog or a good Airedale or a fox-hound, or something,
the first things you want intelligent people from out of town to see are
that awful old darky and his mongrel scratchin' fleas and like as not
lettin' 'em get on other people! THAT'd be nice, wouldn't it? Go out to
tea expecting decent treatment and get fl--”

“WILLIE!”

Mrs. Baxter managed to obtain his attention. “If you'll go and brush
your hair I'll send Genesis and Clematis away for the rest of the
afternoon. And then if you 'll sit down quietly and try to keep cool
until your friends get here, I'll--”

“'Quietly'!” he echoed, shaking his head over this mystery. “I'm the
only one that IS quiet around here. Things 'd be in a fine condition to
receive guests if I didn't keep pretty cool, I guess!”

“There, there,” she said, soothingly. “Go and brush your hair. And
change your collar, Willie; it's all wilted. I'll send Genesis away.”

His wandering eye failed to meet hers with any intelligence. “Collar,”
 he muttered, as if in soliloquy. “Collar.”

“Change it!” said Mrs. Baxter, raising her voice. “It's WILTED.”

He departed in a dazed manner.

Passing through the hall, he paused abruptly, his eye having fallen
with sudden disapproval upon a large, heavily framed, glass-covered
engraving, “The Battle of Gettysburg,” which hung upon the wall, near
the front door. Undeniably, it was a picture feeble in decorative
quality; no doubt, too, William was right in thinking it as unworthy of
Miss Pratt, as were Jane and Genesis and Clematis. He felt that she must
never see it, especially as the frame had been chipped and had a corner
broken, but it was more pleasantly effective where he found it than
where (in his nervousness) he left it. A few hasty jerks snapped the
elderly green cords by which it was suspended; then he laid the picture
upon the floor and with his handkerchief made a curious labyrinth
of avenues in the large oblong area of fine dust which this removal
disclosed upon the wall. Pausing to wipe his hot brow with the same
implement, he remembered that some one had made allusions to his collar
and hair, whereupon he sprang to the stairs, mounted two at a time,
rushed into his own room, and confronted his streaked image in the
mirror.




XIII

AT HOME TO HIS FRIENDS

After ablutions, he found his wet hair plastic, and easily obtained the
long, even sweep backward from the brow, lacking which no male person,
unless bald, fulfilled his definition of a man of the world. But
there ensued a period of vehemence and activity caused by a bent
collar-button, which went on strike with a desperation that was
downright savage. The day was warm and William was warmer; moisture
bedewed him afresh. Belated victory no sooner arrived than he perceived
a fatal dimpling of the new collar, and was forced to begin the
operation of exchanging it for a successor. Another exchange, however,
he unfortunately forgot to make: the handkerchief with which he had
wiped the wall remained in his pocket.

Voices from below, making polite laughter, warned him that already some
of the bidden party had arrived, and, as he completed the fastening of
his third consecutive collar, an ecstasy of sound reached him through
the open window--and then, Oh then! his breath behaved in an abnormal
manner and he began to tremble. It was the voice of Miss Pratt, no less!

He stopped for one heart-struck look from his casement. All in fluffy
white and heliotrope she was--a blonde rapture floating over the
sidewalk toward William's front gate. Her little white cottony dog, with
a heliotrope ribbon round his neck, bobbed his head over her cuddling
arm; a heliotrope parasol shielded her infinitesimally from the amorous
sun. Poor William!

Two youths entirely in William's condition of heart accompanied the
glamorous girl and hung upon her rose-leaf lips, while Miss Parcher
appeared dimly upon the outskirts of the group, the well-known penalty
for hostesses who entertain such radiance. Probably it serves them
right.

To William's reddening ear Miss Pratt's voice came clearly as the
chiming of tiny bells, for she spoke whimsically to her little dog in
that tinkling childlike fashion which was part of the spell she cast.

“Darlin' Flopit,” she said, “wake up! Oo tummin' to tea-potty wiz all de
drowed-ups. P'eshus Flopit, wake up!”

Dizzy with enchantment, half suffocated, his heart melting within him,
William turned from the angelic sounds and fairy vision of the window.
He ran out of the room, and plunged down the front stairs. And the next
moment the crash of breaking glass and the loud thump-bump of a heavily
falling human body resounded through the house.

Mrs. Baxter, alarmed, quickly excused herself from the tea-table, round
which were gathered four or five young people, and hastened to the front
hall, followed by Jane. Through the open door were seen Miss Pratt, Miss
Parcher, Mr. Johnnie Watson and Mr. Joe Bullitt coming leisurely up the
sunny front walk, laughing and unaware of the catastrophe which had just
occurred within the shadows of the portal. And at a little distance from
the foot of the stairs William was seated upon the prostrate “Battle of
Gettysburg.”

“It slid,” he said, hoarsely. “I carried it upstairs with me”--he
believed this--“and somebody brought it down and left it lying flat on
the floor by the bottom step on purpose to trip me! I stepped on it and
it slid.” He was in a state of shock: it seemed important to impress
upon his mother the fact that the picture had not remained firmly in
place when he stepped upon it. “It SLID, I tell you!”

“Get up, Willie!” she urged, under her breath, and as he summoned
enough presence of mind to obey, she beheld ruins other than the wrecked
engraving. She stifled a cry. “WILLIE! Did the glass cut you?”

He felt himself. “No'm.”

“It did your trousers! You'll have to change them. Hurry!”

Some of William's normal faculties were restored to him by one hasty
glance at the back of his left leg, which had a dismantled appearance. A
long blue strip of cloth hung there, with white showing underneath.

“HURRY!” said Mrs. Baxter. And hastily gathering some fragments of
glass, she dropped them upon the engraving, pushed it out of the way,
and went forward to greet Miss Pratt and her attendants.

As for William, he did not even pause to close his mouth, but fled with
it open. Upward he sped, unseen, and came to a breathless halt upon the
landing at the top of the stairs.

As it were in a dream he heard his mother's hospitable greetings at the
door, and then the little party lingered in the hall, detained by Miss
Pratt's discovery of Jane.

“Oh, tweetums tootums ickle dirl!” he heard the ravishing voice exclaim.
“Oh, tootums ickle blue sash!”

“It cost a dollar and eighty-nine cents,” said Jane. “Willie sat on the
cakes.”

“Oh no, he didn't,” Mrs. Baxter laughed. “He didn't QUITE!”

“He had to go up-stairs,” said Jane. And as the stricken listener above
smote his forehead, she added placidly, “He tore a hole in his clo'es.”

She seemed about to furnish details, her mood being communicative, but
Mrs. Baxter led the way into the “living-room”; the hall was vacated,
and only the murmur of voices and laughter reached William. What
descriptive information Jane may have added was spared his hearing,
which was a mercy.

And yet it may be that he could not have felt worse than he did; for
there IS nothing worse than to be seventeen and to hear one of the
Noblest girls in the world told by a little child that you sat on the
cakes and tore a hole in your clo'es.

William leaned upon the banister railing and thought thoughts about
Jane. For several long, seething moments he thought of her exclusively.
Then, spurred by the loud laughter of rivals and the agony of knowing
that even in his own house they were monopolizing the attention of one
of the Noblest, he hastened into his own, room and took account of his
reverses.

Standing with his back to the mirror, he obtained over his shoulder
a view of his trousers which caused him to break out in a fresh
perspiration. Again he wiped his forehead with the handkerchief, and the
result was instantly visible in the mirror.

The air thickened with sounds of frenzy, followed by a torrential roar
and great sputterings in a bath-room, which tumult subsiding, William
returned at a tragic gallop to his room and, having removed his
trousers, began a feverish examination of the garments hanging in a
clothes-closet. There were two pairs of flannel trousers which would
probably again be white and possible, when cleaned and pressed, but a
glance showed that until then they were not to be considered as even
the last resort of desperation. Beside them hung his “last year's summer
suit” of light gray.

Feverishly he brought it forth, threw off his coat, and then--deflected
by another glance at the mirror--began to change his collar again.
This was obviously necessary, and to quicken the process he decided
to straighten the bent collar-button. Using a shoe-horn as a lever,
he succeeded in bringing the little cap or head of the button into its
proper plane, but, unfortunately, his final effort dislodged the cap
from the rod between it and the base, and it flew off malignantly
into space. Here was a calamity; few things are more useless than a
decapitated collar-button, and William had no other. He had made
sure that it was his last before he put it on, that day; also he
had ascertained that there was none in, on, or about his father's
dressing-table. Finally, in the possession of neither William nor his
father was there a shirt with an indigenous collar.

For decades, collar-buttons have been on the hand-me-down shelves of
humor; it is a mistake in the catalogue. They belong to pathos. They
have done harm in the world, and there have been collar-buttons that
failed when the destinies of families hung upon them. There have
been collar-buttons that thwarted proper matings. There have been
collar-buttons that bore last hopes, and, falling to the floor,
NEVER were found! William's broken collar-button was really the only
collar-button in the house, except such as were engaged in serving his
male guests below.

At first he did not realize the extent of his misfortune. How could he?
Fate is always expected to deal its great blows in the grand manner.
But our expectations are fustian spangled with pinchbeck; we look for
tragedy to be theatrical. Meanwhile, every day before our eyes, fate
works on, employing for its instruments the infinitesimal, the ignoble
and the petty--in a word, collar-buttons.

Of course William searched his dressing-table and his father's, although
he had been thoroughly over both once before that day. Next he went
through most of his mother's and Jane's accessories to the
toilette; through trinket-boxes, glove-boxes, hairpin-boxes,
handkerchief-cases--even through sewing-baskets. Utterly he convinced
himself that ladies not only use no collar-buttons, but also never pick
them up and put them away among their own belongings. How much time he
consumed in this search is difficult to reckon;--it is almost impossible
to believe that there is absolutely no collar-button in a house.

And what William's state of mind had become is matter for exorbitant
conjecture. Jane, arriving at his locked door upon an errand, was bidden
by a thick, unnatural voice to depart.

“Mamma says, 'What in mercy's name is the matter?'” Jane called. “She
whispered to me, 'Go an' see what in mercy's name is the matter with
Willie; an' if the glass cut him, after all; an' why don't he come
down'; an' why don't you, Willie? We're all havin' the nicest time!”

“You g'way!” said the strange voice within the room. “G'way!”

“Well, did the glass cut you?”

“No! Keep quiet! G'way!”

“Well, are you EVER comin' down to your party?”

“Yes, I am! G'way!”

Jane obeyed, and William somehow completed the task upon which he was
engaged. Genius had burst forth from his despair; necessity had become
a mother again, and William's collar was in place. It was tied there.
Under his necktie was a piece of string.

He had lost count of time, but he was frantically aware of its passage;
agony was in the thought of so many rich moments frittered away;
up-stairs, while Joe Bullitt and Johnnie Watson made hay below. And
there was another spur to haste in his fear that the behavior of Mrs.
Baxter might not be all that the guest of honor would naturally expect
of William's mother. As for Jane, his mind filled with dread; shivers
passed over him at intervals.

It was a dismal thing to appear at a “party” (and that his own) in “last
summer's suit,” but when he had hastily put it on and faced the mirror,
he felt a little better--for three or four seconds. Then he turned to
see how the back of it looked.

And collapsed in a chair, moaning.




XIV

TIME DOES FLY

He remembered now what he had been too hurried to remember earlier. He
had worn these clothes on the previous Saturday, and, returning from a
glorified walk with Miss Pratt, he had demonstrated a fact to which his
near-demolition of the wafers, this afternoon, was additional testimony.
This fact, roughly stated, is that a person of seventeen, in love, is
liable to sit down anywhere. William had dreamily seated himself upon
a tabouret in the library, without noticing that Jane had left her open
paint-box there. Jane had just been painting sunsets; naturally all the
little blocks of color were wet, and the effect upon William's pale-gray
trousers was marvelous--far beyond the capacity of his coat to conceal.
Collar-buttons and children's paint-boxes--those are the trolls that lie
in wait!

The gray clothes and the flannel trousers had been destined for the
professional cleaner, and William, rousing himself from a brief stupor,
made a piteous effort to substitute himself for that expert so far
as the gray trousers were concerned. He divested himself of them and
brought water, towels, bath-soap, and a rubber bath-sponge to the bright
light of his window; and; there, with touching courage and persistence,
he tried to scrub the paint out of the cloth. He obtained cloud studies
and marines which would have interested a Post-Impressionist, but upon
trousers they seemed out of place.

There came one seeking and calling him again; raps sounded upon the
door, which he had not forgotten to lock.

“Willie,” said a serious voice, “mamma wants to know what in mercy's
name is the matter! She wants to know if you know for mercy's name what
time it is! She wants to know what in mercy's name you think they're all
goin' to think! She says--”

“G'WAY!”

“Well, she said I had to find out what in mercy's name you're doin',
Willie.”

“You tell her,” he shouted, hoarsely--“tell her I'm playin' dominoes!
What's she THINK I'm doin'?”

“I guess”--Jane paused, evidently to complete the swallowing of
something--“I guess she thinks you're goin' crazy. I don't like Miss
Pratt, but she lets me play with that little dog. It's name's Flopit!”

“You go 'way from that door and stop bothering me,” said William. “I got
enough on my mind!”

“Mamma looks at Miss Pratt,” Jane remarked. “Miss Pratt puts cakes in
that Mr. Bullitt's mouth and Johnnie Watson's mouth, too. She's awful.”

William made it plain that these bulletins from the party found no favor
with him. He bellowed, “If you don't get away from that DOOR--”

Jane was interested in the conversation, but felt that it would be
better to return to the refreshment-table. There she made use of her own
conception of a whisper to place before her mother a report which was
considered interesting and even curious by every one present; though,
such was the courtesy of the little assembly, there was a general
pretense of not hearing.

“I told him,” thus whispered Jane, “an' he said, 'You g'way from that
door or I'll do somep'm'--he didn't say what, mamma. He said, 'What you
think I'm doin'? I'm playin' dominoes.' He didn't mean he WAS playin'
dominoes, mamma. He just said he was. I think maybe he was just lookin'
in the lookin'-glass some more.”

Mrs. Baxter was becoming embarrassed. She resolved to go to William's
room herself at the first opportunity; but for some time her
conscientiousness as a hostess continued to occupy her at the table,
and then, when she would have gone, Miss Pratt detained her by a roguish
appeal to make Mr. Bullitt and Mr. Watson behave. Both refused all
nourishment except such as was placed in their mouths by the delicate
hand of one of the Noblest, and the latter said that really she wanted
to eat a little tweetie now and then herself, and not to spend her whole
time feeding the Men. For Miss Pratt had the same playfulness with older
people that she had with those of her own age; and she elaborated her
pretended quarrel with the two young gentlemen, taking others of the
dazzled company into her confidence about it, and insisting upon “Mamma
Batster's” acting formally as judge to settle the difficulty. However,
having thus arranged matters, Miss Pratt did not resign the center of
interest, but herself proposed a compromise: she would continue to feed
Mr. Bullitt and Mr. Watson “every other tweetie”--that is, each must
agree to eat a cake “all by him own self,” after every cake fed to him.
So the comedietta went on, to the running accompaniment of laughter,
with Mr. Bullitt and Mr. Watson swept by such gusts of adoration they
were like to perish where they sat. But Mrs. Baxter's smiling approval
was beginning to be painful to the muscles of her face, for it was
hypocritical. And if William had known her thoughts about one of the
Noblest, he could only have attributed them to that demon of groundless
prejudice which besets all females, but most particularly and
outrageously the mothers and sisters of Men.

A colored serving-maid entered with a laden tray, and, having disposed
of its freight of bon-bons among the guests, spoke to Mrs. Baxter in a
low voice.

“Could you manage step in the back hall a minute, please, ma'am?”

Mrs. Baxter managed and, having closed the door upon the laughing
voices, asked, quickly--“What is it, Adelia? Have you seen Mr. William?
Do you know why he doesn't come down?”

“Yes'm,” said Adelia. “He gone mighty near out his head, Miz Baxter.”

“What!”

“Yes'm. He come floppin' down the back stairs in his baf-robe li'l'
while ago. He jes' gone up again. He 'ain't got no britches, Miz
Baxter.”

“No WHAT?”

“No'm,” said Adelia. “He 'ain't got no britches at all.”

A statement of this kind is startling under Almost any circumstances,
and it is unusually so when made in reference to a person for whom a
party is being given. Therefore it was not unreasonable of Mrs. Baxter
to lose her breath.

“But--it can't BE!” she gasped. “He has! He has plenty!”

“No'm, he 'ain't,” Adelia assured her. “An' he's carryin' on so I don't
scarcely think he knows much what he's doin', Miz Baxter. He brung down
some gray britches to the kitchen to see if I couldn' press an' clean
'em right quick: they was the ones Miss Jane, when she's paintin' all
them sunsets, lef' her paint-box open, an' one them sunsets got on these
here gray britches, Miz Baxter; an' hones'ly, Miz Baxter, he's fixed 'em
in a condishum, tryin' to git that paint out, I don't believe it 'll be
no use sendin' 'em to the cleaner. 'Clean 'em an' press 'em QUICK?' I
says. 'I couldn' clean 'em by Resurreckshum, let alone pressin' 'em!'
No'm! Well, he had his blue britches, too, but they's so ripped an' tore
an' kind o' shredded away in one place, the cook she jes' hollered when
he spread 'em out, an' he didn' even ast me could I mend 'em. An' he had
two pairs o' them white flannen britches, but hones'ly, Miz Baxter,
I don't scarcely think Genesis would wear 'em, the way they is now!
'Well,' I says, 'ain't but one thing lef' to do _I_ can see,' I says.
'Why don't you go put on that nice black suit you had las' winter?'”

“Of course!” Mrs. Baxter cried. “I'll go and--”

“No'm,” said Adelia. “You don' need to. He's up in the attic now,
r'arin' roun' 'mongs' them trunks, but seem to me like I remember you
put that suit away under the heavy blankets in that big cedar ches' with
the padlock. If you jes' tell me where is the key, I take it up to him.”

“Under the bureau in the spare room,” said Mrs. Baxter. “HURRY!”

Adelia hurried; and, fifteen minutes later, William, for the last time
that afternoon, surveyed himself in his mirror. His face showed the
strain that had been upon him and under which he still labored; the
black suit was a map of creases, and William was perspiring more freely
than ever under the heavy garments. But at least he was clothed.

He emptied his pockets, disgorging upon the floor a multitude of small
white spheres, like marbles. Then, as he stepped out into the hall, he
discovered that their odor still remained about him; so he stopped
and carefully turned his pockets inside out, one after the other, but
finding that he still smelled vehemently of the “moth-balls,” though not
one remained upon him, he went to his mother's room and sprinkled violet
toilet-water upon his chest and shoulders. He disliked such odors, but
that left by the moth-balls was intolerable, and, laying hands upon a
canister labeled “Hyacinth,” he contrived to pour a quantity of scented
powder inside his collar, thence to be distributed by the force of
gravity so far as his dampness permitted.

Lo, William was now ready to go to his party! Moist, wilted, smelling
indeed strangely, he was ready.

But when he reached the foot of the stairs he discovered that there was
one thing more to be done. Indignation seized him, and also a creeping
fear chilled his spine, as he beheld a lurking shape upon the porch,
stealthily moving toward the open door. It was the lowly Clematis, dog
unto Genesis.

William instantly divined the purpose of Clematis. It was debatable
whether Clematis had remained upon the premises after the departure of
Genesis, or had lately returned thither upon some errand of his own,
but one thing was certain, and the manner of Clematis--his attitude,
his every look, his every gesture--made it as clear as day. Clematis
had discovered, by one means or another, the presence of Flopit in the
house, and had determined to see him personally.

Clematis wore his most misleading expression; a stranger would have
thought him shy and easily turned from his purpose--but William was not
deceived. He knew that if Clematis meant to see Flopit, a strong will,
a ready brain, and stern action were needed to thwart him; but at all
costs that meeting must be prevented. Things had been awful enough,
without that!

He was well aware that Clematis could not be driven away, except
temporarily, for nothing was further fixed upon Clematis than his habit
of retiring under pressure, only to return and return again. True, the
door could have been shut in the intruder's face, but he would have
sought other entrance with possible success, or, failing that, would
have awaited in the front yard the dispersal of the guests and Flopit's
consequent emerging. This was a contretemps not to be endured.

The door of the living-room was closed, muffling festal noises and
permitting safe passage through the hall. William cast a hunted look
over his shoulder; then he approached Clematis.

“Good ole doggie,” he said, huskily. “Hyuh, Clem! Hyuh, Clem!”

Clematis moved sidelong, retreating with his head low and his tail
denoting anxious thoughts.

“Hyuh, Clem!” said William, trying, with only fair success, to keep his
voice from sounding venomous. “Hyuh, Clem!”

Clematis continued his deprecatory retreat.

Thereupon William essayed a ruse--he pretended to nibble at something,
and then extended his hand as if it held forth a gift of food. “Look,
Clem,” he said. “Yum-yum! Meat, Clem! Good meat!”

For once Clematis was half credulous. He did not advance, but he
elongated himself to investigate the extended hand, and the next instant
found himself seized viciously by the scruff of the neck. He submitted
to capture in absolute silence. Only the slightest change of countenance
betrayed his mortification at having been found so easy a gull; this
passed, and a look of resolute stoicism took its place.

He refused to walk, but offered merely nominal resistance, as a formal
protest which he wished to be of record, though perfectly understanding
that it availed nothing at present. William 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 flowerbeds 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
admiration. “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, beforehand?”

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
smokestack. 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 thinking--”
 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 trolleycar 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 plausibility. “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

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