TWO LITTLE CRIMES
And then in a few weeks winter had come down from over the hills across
the fields and captured the city streets with a blare of northern winds,
which had been met and tempered by the mellow autumn breezes that had
been slow to retreat and abandon the gold and crimson banners still
fluttering on the trees. The snap and crackle of the Thanksgiving frost
had melted into a long lazy silence of a few more Indian summer days so
that, with lungs filled with the intoxicating draught of this late wine
of October, everybody had ridden, driven, hunted, golfed and lived
afield.
Then had come a second sweep of the northern winds and the city had
wakened out of its haze of desertion, turned up its lights, built up its
fires and put on the trappings of revelry and toil.
The major's logs were piled the higher and crackled the louder, and his
welcome was even more genial to the chosen spirits which gathered around
his library table. He and Mrs. Buchanan had succeeded in prolonging the
visit of Caroline Darrah Brown into weeks and were now holding her into
the winter months with loving insistence.
The open-armed hospitality with which their very delightful little world
had welcomed her had been positively entrancing to the girl and she had
entered into its gaieties with the joyous zest of the child that she was.
Her own social experiences had been up to this time very limited, for
she had come straight from the convent in France into the household of
her semi-invalided father. He had had very few friends and in a vaguely
uncomfortable way she had been made to realize that her millions made her
position inaccessible; but by these delightful people to whom social
position was a birthright, and wealth regarded only as a purchasing power
for the necessities and gaieties of life, she had been adopted with much
enthusiasm. Her delight in the round of entertainments in her honor and
the innocent and slightly bewildered adventures she brought the major for
consultation kept him in a constant state of interested amusement. Such
advice as he offered went far in preserving her unsophistication.
And so the late November days found him enjoying life with a decidedly
added zest in things, though his Immortals claimed him the moment he was
left to his own resources and at times he even became entirely oblivious
to the eddies in the lives around him. One cold afternoon he sat in his
chair, buried eyes-deep in one of his old books, while across from him
sat Phoebe and Andrew Sevier, bending together over a large map spread
out before them. There were stacks of blueprints at their elbows and
their conference had evidently been an interesting one.
"It's all wonderful, Andrew," Phoebe was saying, "and I'm proud indeed
that they have accepted your solution of such an important construction
problem; but why must you go back? Aren't the commissions offered you
here, the plays and the demand for your writing enough? Why not stay at
home for a year or two at least?"
"It's the _call_ of it, Phoebe," he answered. "I get restless and there's
nothing for it but the hard work of the camp. It's lonely but it has its
compensations, for the visions come down there as they don't here. You
know how I like to be with all of you; and it's home--but the depression
gets more than I can stand at times and I must go. You understand better
than the rest, I think, and I always count on you to help me off." As he
spoke he rested his head on his hands and looked across the table into
the fire. His eyes were somber and the strong lines in his face cut deep
with a grim melancholy.
Phoebe's frank eyes softened as they looked at him. They had grown up
together, friends in something of a like fortune and she understood him
with a frank comradeship that comforted them both and went far to the
distraction of young David Kildare who, as he said, trusted Andrew but
looked for every possible surprising maneuver in the conduct of Phoebe.
And because she understood Andrew Phoebe was silent for a time, tracing
the lines on his map with a pencil.
"Then you'll have to go," she said softly at last, "but don't stay so
long again." She glanced across at the top of the major's head which
showed a rampant white lock over the edge of his book. "We miss you; and
you owe it to some of us to come back oftener from now on."
"I always will," answered Andrew, quickly catching her meaning and
smiling with a responsive tenderness in a glance at the absorbed old
gentleman around the corner of the table. "It is harder to go this time
than ever, in a way; and yet the staying's worse. I'm giving myself until
spring, though I don't know why. I--"
Just then from the drawing-room beyond there came a crash of soft chords
on the piano and David's voice rose high and sweet across the rooms. He
had gone to the piano to sing for Caroline who never tired of his negro
melodies and southern love songs. He also had a store of war ballads with
which it delighted him to tease and regale her, but to-day his mood had
been decidedly on the sentimental vein.
"I want no stars in Heaven to guide me,
I need no......................
......but, oh, the kingdom of my heart, love,
Lies within thy loving arms...."
His voice dropped a note lower and the rest of the distinctly enunciated
words failed to reach through the long rooms. Phoebe also failed to
catch a quick breath that Andrew drew as he began stacking a pile of
blue-prints into a leather case.
"David Kildare," remarked the old major as he looked up over his book,
"makes song the vehicle of expression of as many emotions in one
half-hour as the ordinary man lives through in a lifetime. Had you not
better attend to the safeguarding of Caroline Darrah's unsophistication,
Phoebe?"
"I wouldn't interrupt him for worlds, Major," laughed Phoebe as she arose
from her chair. "I'm going to slip by the drawing-room and hurry down to
that meeting of the Civic Improvement Association from which I hope to
get at least a half column. Andrew'll go in and see to them."
"Never!" answered Andrew promptly with a smile. "I'm going to beat a
retreat and walk down with you. The major must assume that
responsibility. Good-by!" And in a moment they had both made their
escape, to the major's vast amusement.
For the time being the music in the drawing-room had stopped and David
and Caroline were deep in an animated conversation.
"The trouble about it is that I am about to have my light put out," David
was complaining as he sat on the piano-stool, glaring at a vase of
unoffending roses on a table. "Being a ray of sunshine around the house
for a sick poet is no job for a runabout child like me."
"But he's so much better now, David, that I should think you would be
perfectly happy. Though of course you are still a little uneasy about
him." As Caroline Darrah spoke she swayed the long-stemmed rose she held
in her hand and tipped it against one of its mates in the vase.
"Uneasy, nothing! There's not a thing in the world the matter with him;
ribs are all in commission and his collar-bone hitched on again. It's
just a case of moonie sulks with him. He never was the real glad boy, but
now he runs entirely to poetry and gloom. He won't go anywhere but over
here to chew book-rags with the major or to read goo to Phoebe, which she
passes on to you. Wish I'd let him die in the swamps; chasing away to
Panama for him was my mistake, I see." And David ruffled a young rose
that drooped confidingly over toward him.
"Why did he ever go to Panama? Why does he build bridges and things?
Other people like you and me can do that sort of thing; but he--," and
Caroline Darrah raised her eyes full of naive questioning.
"Heavens, woman, poetry never in the world would grub-stake six feet of
husky man! But that's just like you and Phoebe and all the other women.
You would like to feed me to the alligators, but the poet must sit in the
shade and chew eggs and grape juice. You trample on my feelings, child,"
and David sighed plaintively.
Caroline eyed him a moment across the rose she held to her lips, then
laughed delightedly.
"Indeed, indeed, I couldn't stand losing you, David, nor could Phoebe.
Don't imagine it!" And Caroline confessed her affection for him with the
naïveté with which a child offers a flower.
The absolute entente cordiale which had existed between her and Phoebe
from the moment Mrs. Buchanan had presented them to each other in the
dusk-shadowed library, had been extended to include David Kildare. He was
duly appreciative of her almost appealing friendship, chaffed her about
the three governors, depended upon her to further his tumultuous suit,
admired her beauty, insisted upon it in season and out, and initiated her
into the social intricacies of his gay set with the greatest glee.
"I don't trust you one little bit, Caroline Darrah Brown," David broke in
on her moment's silent appreciation of him and his friendliness. "You
look at him kinder partial-like, too."
"Oh, one _must_ admire him, his poems are so lovely! I have watched for
them from the first one years ago. Do you remember the one where he--"
"Don't remember a single line of a single one, and don't want to!
Phoebe's always quoting them at me. She's got a book of 'em. See if I
don't smash him up some day if I have to listen to much more of it."
David's face was a study in the contradictions of a tormented grin.
Caroline eyed him again for a moment across the rose and then they both
laughed delightedly. But David was for the pressing of his point just the
same.
"Dear Daughter of the Three," he pleaded, "can't you help me out?
Mollycoddle him a bit. Do, now, that's a good child! Keep him
'interested', as _she_ calls it! You are quite as good to look at as
Phoebe and are enough more--more,"--and David paused for a word that
would compare Caroline's appeal and Phoebe's brisk challenge.
"Yes, I understand. I really am _more_ so; but how can I help you out if
he never even sees me when I'm there?" And Caroline raised eyes to him
that held a hint of wistfulness in their banter.
"The old mole-eyed grump never sees anybody nor anything. But let's plot
a scheme. This three-handed game doesn't suit me; promise to be good and
sit in. I haven't had Phoebe to myself for the long time. He needs a
heart interest of his own--I'm tired of lending him mine. You're not
busy--that's a sweet girl! Don't make me feel I inherited you for
nothing," said David in a most beguiling voice as he moved a shade nearer
to her.
"I promise, I promise! If you take that tone with me, I'm afraid not to:
but I feel you mistake my powers," and Caroline laid the rose across her
knee and dropped her long lashes over her eyes. "I think I'll fail with
your poet; something tells me it is a vain task. Let's put it in the
hands of the gods. It may interest them."
"No, I'm going to shoo him in here right now," answered David, bent upon
the immediate accomplishment of his scheme for the relief of his very
independent lady-love from her friendly durance. "You just wait and get a
line of moon-talk ready for him. Keep that rose in your hand and handle
your eyes carefully."
"Oh, but it's impossible!" exclaimed Caroline with real alarm in her
voice. She rose and the flower fell shattered at her feet. "I'm going to
have a little business talk with the major before Captain Cantrell and
the other gentlemen come. I have an appointment with him. Won't you leave
it to the gods?"
"No, for the gods might not know Phoebe. She'd hunt a hot brick for a
sick kitten if I was freezing to death, and besides I need her in my
business at this very moment."
"Caroline, my dear," said the major from the door into the library, "from
the strenuosity in the tones of David Kildare I judge he is discussing
his usual topic. Phoebe and Andrew have just gone and left their good-bys
for you both."
"Now, Major," demanded David indignantly, "how could you let her get away
when you had her here?"
"Young man," answered the major, "the constraining of a woman of these
times is well-nigh impossible, as you should have found out after your
repeated efforts in that direction."
"That's it, Major, you can't hang out any signal for them now; you have
to grab them as they go past, swing out into space and pray for strength
to hold on. I believe if you stood still they would come and feed out of
your hand a heap quicker than they will be whistled down--if you can get
the nerve to try 'em. Think I'll go and see." And David took his
studiedly unhurried departure.
"David Kildare translates courtship into strange modern terms," remarked
the major as he led Caroline into the library and seated her in Mrs.
Matilda's low chair near his own.
"The roses are blooming this morning, my dear," he said, looking
with delight at the soft color in her cheeks and the stars in her
black-lashed, violet eyes. A shaft of sunlight glinted in the gold of her
hair which was coiled low and from which little tendrils curled down on
her white neck.
She was very dainty and lovely, was Caroline Darrah Brown, with the
loveliness of a windflower and young with the innocent youngness of an
April day. She was slightly different from any girl the major had ever
known and he observed her type with the greatest interest.
She had been tutored and trained and French-convented and specialized by
adepts in the inculcating of every air and grace with which the women of
vaster wealth are expected to be equipped. Money and the girl had been
the ruling passions of Peters Brown's life and the one had been all for
the serving purposes of the other. It had been the one aim of his
existence to bring to a perfect flowering the new-born bud his southern
wife had left him, and he had succeeded. Yet she seemed so slight a
woman-thing to be bearing the burden of a great wealth and a great
loneliness that the major's eyes grew very tender as he asked:
"What is it, clear, a crumpled rose-leaf?"
"Major," she answered as her slender fingers opened and closed a book on
the table near her, "did you realize that two months have passed since I
came to--to--"
"Came _home_, child," prompted the major as he touched lightly the
restless hand near his own.
"I am beginning to feel as if it might be that, and yet I don't know--not
until I talk to you about it all. Everybody has been good to me. I feel
that they really care and I love it--and them all! But, Major, did
you--know--my father--well?"
"Yes, my dear." He answered, looking her straight in the eyes, "I knew
Peters Brown and had pleasantly hostile relations with him always."
"This memorandum--I got it together before I came down here, while I was
settling up his estate. It is the list of the investments he made while
in the South for the twenty years after the war. I want to talk them over
with you." She looked at the major squarely and determinedly.
"Fire away," he answered with courage in his voice that belied the
feeling beneath it.
"I see that in eighteen seventy-nine he bought lumber lands from Hayes
Donelson. The price seems to have been practically nominal in view of
what he sold a part of them for three years later. Was Hayes Donelson
Phoebe's father? I want to know all about him."
"My dear, you are giving a large order for ancient history--Captain
Donelson couldn't fill it himself if he were alive. Those lumber lands
were just a stick or two that he threw on the grand bonfire. He sold
everything he had and instituted and ran the most inflammatory newspaper
in the South. He gloried in an attitude of non-reconstruction and died
when Phoebe was a year old. Her mother raised Phoebe by keeping boarders,
but failed to raise the mortgage on the family home. She died trying and
Phoebe has kept her own sleek little head above water since her sixteenth
year by reporting and editing Dimity Doings on the paper her father
founded. I think she has learned a pretty good swimming stroke by this
time. It is still a measure ahead of that of David Kildare and--"
"Oh, you _must_ help me make her take what would have been a fair price
for those lands, Major. I'm determined--I--I--" Caroline's voice faltered
but her head was well up. "I'm determined; but we'll talk of that later.
He bought the Cantrell land and divided it up into the first improved
city addition. Was it, was it 'carpetbagging'?" She flushed as she said
the word--"Was it pressure? Were the Cantrells in need?"
"Not for long, my dear, not for long! Mrs. Tom took that money and bought
cows for the east farm, ran a dairy in opposition to Matilda's and then
got her into a combine to ship gilt-edge to Cincinnati. I expected them
to skim the milky way any night and put a star brand of butter on the
market. They made a great deal of money and were proportionately hard to
manage. Young Tom inherits from his mother and makes paying combines in
stocks. Old Tom hasn't a thing to do but sit in the sun and spin tales
about battles he was and was not in. It wouldn't do to drag up that
pinched period of his life; he is too expansive now to be made to recall
it." The major smiled invitingly as if he had hopes of an interested
question that would turn the trend of the conversation, but Caroline
Darrah held herself sternly to the matter in hand.
"And you, I see a sale of half of your land at--"
"Caroline Darrah Brown, look me straight in the eyes," interrupted the
major in a commanding voice. He sat up and bent his keen black eyes that
sparkled under his heavy white brows with absolute luminosity upon the
girl at his side. When aroused the major was a live wire and he was
buckling on his sword to do battle with a woman-trouble, and a dire one.
"Now," he continued, "I'm going to say things to you that you are to
understand and remember, young woman. Your father did come down among us
with what you have heard called a 'carpetbag' in his hands, but it wasn't
an _empty_ one: and while the sums he handed out to each of us might be
considered inadequate, still they were a purchasing power at a time
when things were congested for the lack of any circulating medium
whatever. True, I sold him half my thousand acres for a song; but the
song fenced the other half, bought implements and stock, and made Matilda
possible. She was eighteen and I was twenty-eight when we joined forces
and it was decidedly to the tune of your father's 'song'. It was the same
with the rest of his--friends. You must see that in the painful processes
of reconstructing us the carpetbag had its uses. If it went away
plethoric with coal and iron and lumber, it left a little gold in its
wake. And Peters Brown--"
"Major," said Caroline in a brave voice, "it killed him, the memory of it
and not being able to bring me back to her people. He was changed and he
realized that he left me very much alone in the world. If there had been
any of her immediate family alive we might have felt differently--but
her friends--I didn't know that I would be welcomed. Now--now--I begin
to hope. I want to give some of it back! I have so much--"
"Caroline, child," answered the major with a smile that was infinitely
tender, "we don't need it! We've had a hand-to-hand fight to inherit the
land of our fathers but we're building fortunes fast; we and the
youngsters. The gray line has closed up its ranks and toed hard marks
until it presents a solid front once more; some of it bent and shaky but
supported on all sides by keen young blood. A solid front, I say, and a
friendly one, flying no banners of bitterness--don't you like us?" and
the smile broadened until it warmed the very blood in Caroline Darrah's
heart.
"Yes," she said as she lifted her eyes to his and laid both her hands in
the lean strong one he held out for her then, "and all that awful feeling
has gone completely. I feel--feel new born!"
"And isn't it a great thing that we mortals are given a few extra natal
days? If we were born all at one time we couldn't so well enjoy the
processes. Now, I intend to assume that fate has laid you on my door-step
and--"
"Dearie me," said Mrs. Buchanan as she sailed into the room with colors
flying in cheeks and eyes, "did Phoebe go on to that meeting after all?
Did she promise to come back? Where's Andrew? Caroline, child, what have
you and the major been doing all the afternoon? It's after four and you
are both still indoors."
"I have been adopting Caroline Darrah and she has been adopting me,"
answered the major as he caught hold of the lace that trailed from one of
his wife's wrists. "I think I am about to persuade her to stay with us. I
find I need attention occasionally and you are otherwise engaged for the
winter."
"Isn't he awful, Caroline," smiled Mrs. Matilda as she sank for a moment
on a chair near them, "when I haven't a thought in the day that is not
for him? But I must hurry and tell Tempie that they will all be here from
the philharmonic musicale for tea. Dear, please see that the flowers are
arranged; I had to leave it to Jane this morning. I find I must run over
and speak to Mrs. Shelby about something important, for a moment. Shall I
have buttered biscuits or cake for tea? Caroline, love, just decide and
tell Tempie. I'll be back in a minute," and depositing an airy kiss on
the major's scalp lock and bestowing a smile on Caroline, she departed.
The major listened until he heard the front door close then said with one
of his slow little smiles, "If I couldn't shut my eye and get a mental
picture of her in a white sunbonnet with her skirts tucked up trudging
along behind me dropping corn in the furrows as I opened them with the
plow, I might feel that I ought to--er--remonstrate with her. But there
are bubbles in the nature of most women that will rise to the surface as
soon as the cork is removed. Matilda is a good brand of extra dry and the
cork was in a long time--rammed down tight--bless her!"
"She is the very dearest thing I ever knew," answered Caroline with a
curly smile around her tender mouth. "A letter she wrote while under the
pressure of the cork is my chiefest treasure. It was written to welcome
me when I was born and I found it last summer, old and yellow. It was
what made me think I might come--_home_."
"That was like Matilda," answered the major with a smile in his eyes.
"She was putting in a claim for you then, though she didn't realize it.
Women have always worked combinations by wireless at long time and long
distance. Better make it buttered biscuits, and Phoebe likes them with
plenty of butter."
Tempie's adoption of Caroline Darrah had been as complete and as
enthusiastic as the rest of them and she had proceeded forthwith to put
her through a course of domestic instruction that delighted the hearts of
them both. She never failed to bemoan the fate that had left the child
ignorant of matters of such importance and she was stern in her endeavor
to correct the pernicious neglect. She had to admit, however, that
Caroline was an extraordinarily apt pupil and she laid it all to what she
called "the Darrah strain of cooking blood," though she was as proud as
possible over each triumph. Nothing pleased them both more than to have
Mrs. Buchanan occasionally leave culinary arrangements to their
co-administration.
An hour later a gay party was gathered around the table in the
drawing-room. The major sat near at hand enjoying it hugely, and his
comments were dropped like philosophical crystals into the swell of the
conversation.
Mrs. Cherry Lawrence had come in with Mrs. Matilda in all the bravery of
a most striking, becoming and expensive second mourning costume, and she
was keenly alive to every situation that might be made to compass even
the smallest amount of gaiety. Her lavender embroideries were the only
reminders of the existence of the departed Cherry, and their lavishness
was a direct defiance of his years of effort in the curtailing of the
tastes of his expensive wife.
Tom Cantrell's lean dark face of Indian cast lit up like a transparency
when she arrived and he left Polly Farrell's side so quickly that Polly
almost dropped the lemon fork with which she was maneuvering, in her
surprise at his sudden desertion. In a moment he had divested the widow
of a long cloth and sable coat that would have made Cherry sit up and
groan if he had even had a grave-dream about it. She bestowed a smile on
Polly, a still more impressive one on the major and sank into a chair
near Phoebe.
"Why, where is David Kildare?" she asked interestedly. "I thought he
would be here before me. He promised to come. Phoebe, you are sweet in
that dark gray. Has anybody anything interesting to tell?"
"I have," answered Polly as she passed Phoebe a cup and a mischievous
smile, for Mrs. Cherry's appointment with David tickled Polly's risibles
to an alarming extent. "There's the most heavenly man down here from
Boston to see Caroline Darrah Brown and she _neglects_ him. I'm so sorry
for him that I don't know what will happen. I'm--"
"Why, where is he?" interrupted Mrs. Cherry with the utmost cordiality.
They all laughed as Polly parted her charming lips and passed the
questioner the lemon slices with impressive obviousness.
"He's gone to the station to see about his horses that he has had shipped
down. We're going to hunt some more, no matter how cold; all of us,
Caroline and David and the rest."
"Andrew Sevier hasn't hunted at all this fall, as fond of it as he is.
He'll never come now that you've annexed a foreign element, Polly. He's
among strangers so much that he's rather absurd about wanting the close
circle of just his old friends to be unbroken when he's home. Where is he
to-day?" As she spoke Mrs. Cherry had looked at Caroline Darrah with a
glance in which Phoebe detected a slight insolence and at which the major
narrowed his observant eyes.
"Why, he's gone down to the station with Caroline's friend to see about
having the horses sent out to Seven Oaks," answered Phoebe in a smooth
cool voice. "I think all of us have been disappointed that Andrew has had
to be so careful since his accident; but now that he can come over here
every day to book gloat with the major and have Mrs. Matilda and Tempie,
to say nothing of Caroline Darrah, the new star cook-lady, to feed him
up, I think we can go about our own affairs unworried over him." The
sweet smile that Phoebe bent upon the widow was so delicious that the
major rattled the sugar tongs on the tea-tray by way of relief from an
unendurably suppressed chuckle.
"But when I hunt next David has promised me possums and persimmons," said
Caroline Darrah from her seat on the sofa beside Phoebe. She was totally
oblivious of the small tongue-tilt just completed. "He says the first
damp night on the last quarter of the moon when the wind is from the
southeast and--"
"Howdy, people!" came an interrupting call from the hall and at that
moment David himself came into the room. "I'm late but I've been four
places hunting for you, Phoebe, and had three cups of tea in the
scramble. However, I would like a buttered biscuit if somebody feeds it
to me. I've had a knock-out blow and I've got news to tell."
"You can tell it before you get the biscuit," said Phoebe cold-heartedly,
but she laid two crisp disks on the edge of his saucer. She apparently
failed to see that Mrs. Cherry was endeavoring to pass him the plate.
"It's only that Milly Overton has perpetrated two more crimes on the
community, at three-thirty to-day--assorted boy and girl." And David
grinned with sheer delight at having projected such a bomb in the circle.
"What!" demanded Phoebe while Mrs. Cherry lay back in her chair and
fanned herself, and Mrs. Buchanan paused with suspended teapot.
"Yes," he answered jubilantly, "Of course little Mistake is only two and
a quarter and Crimie can just toddle on his hocks at one and a fifth
years; but the two little crimes are here, and are going to stay. Billy
Bob is down at the club getting his back slapped off about it. He's
accessory you understand. He says Milly is radiant and wants all of you
to come and see them right away. But what I want to see is Grandma
Shelby--won't she rage? I'm going to send her a message of
congratulations and then stand away. Just watch for--"
"Why--I don't quite understand," said Caroline Darrah as she leaned
forward with puzzled eyes.
"Neither do any of the rest of us," answered David gleefully. "We didn't
understand how Billy Bob managed to pluck Mildred from the golden-dollar
Shelby stem in the first place, at a salary of one twenty-five a month
out at Hob's mills. But Billy Bob is the brave boy and he marched right
up and told the old lady about the first kid as soon as he came. Then she
glared at him and said in an awful tone, 'Mistake.' Billy Bob just oozed
out of that door and Mistake the youngster has been ever since. I named
the next Crimie before _she_ got to it. But watch her rage, poor old
dame! It's up to somebody to remonstrate with Milly about this unbecoming
conduct it seems to me," and David glanced around the little circle for
his laugh which he promptly received.
Only Phoebe sat with her head turned from him and Caroline Darrah
exclaimed in distress:
"How could her mother not care for them?"
"Tempie," said Mrs. Buchanan, "pack up a basket of every kind of jelly.
Get that little box I fixed day before yesterday; you know it; wasn't it
fortunate that I embroidered two? And tell Jeff I want the carriage at
six."
"And, Tempie, tell Jeff to get you two bottles of that seventy-two
brandy; no, maybe the sixty-eight will be better; it's apple, and apples
and colic bear a synthetic relation which in this case may be reversed.
Those children must be started off in life properly." And the major's
eyes shone with the most amused interest.
"What's that?" asked David in the general excitement that had arisen at a
farther realization of his news. "Don't you want them to join the 'state
wide' band, Major? Aren't you going to give them a chance to fly a white
ribbon?"
"Well, I don't know," answered the major with a judicial eye, "temperance
is a quality of mind and not solely of throat. Let's depend somewhat on
eradication by future education and not give the colic a start."
"Don't you think it would be nice for you girls to drive down with me and
take the babies some congratulations and flowers, Phoebe?" asked Mrs.
Buchanan an hour later as they all lingered over the empty cups. "Will
you come too, David?"
"Yes," answered Phoebe, "I think it would be lovely, but you and Caroline
drive down and I will walk in with David, I think. Ready, David?" And
Phoebe gathered up her muff and gloves and gave her hand to the major.
"David," she said after they had reached the street and were swinging
along in the early twilight; and as she spoke she looked him full in the
face with her gray level glance that counted whenever she chose to use
it, "is it your idea--do you think it fair to ridicule Mildred about--the
babies?"
"Why," answered the completely floored Kildare, "I just haven't any idea
on the subject. Everybody was laughing about it--and isn't it--er--a
little funny?"
"No," answered Phoebe emphatically, "it isn't _funny_ and if you begin to
laugh everybody else will. It may hurt Milly, she is so gentle and dear,
and you are their best friend. I won't have it! I won't! I'm tired,
anyway, of having fun made of all the sacred things in life. All of us
swing around in a silly whirl and when a woman like Mildred begins to
live her life in a--er--natural way, we--ridicule! She is brave and
strong and works hard; and she has the _real_ things of life and makes
the sacrifices for them. While we--"
"Oh, heavenly hope, Phoebe!" gasped David Kildare, "don't rub it in! I
see it now--a lot of magazine stuff jogging the women up about the kids
and all--and here Milly is a hero and we--the jolly fun-pokers. I've got
to help 'em some way! Wish Billy Bob would sell me this last bunch; guess
he would--one, anyway?" And the contrite David gazed down at Phoebe in
whose upturned eyes there dawned a wealth of mirth.
"David," she said, perhaps more softly than she had ever spoken to him in
all the days of his pursuit, "I know--I felt sure that you felt all right
about it. I couldn't bear to have you say or do--"
"Now, I'll 'fess a thing to you that I didn't think wild horses could
drag out of me, Phoebe. I was down there an hour ago in the back hall of
that flat and Billy Bob let me hold the pair of 'em and squeeze 'em. I
guess we both--just shed a few, you know, because he was so excited. Men
are such slobs at times--when women don't know about it." And David
winked fiercely at the early electric light that glowed warm against the
winter sky.
"And you are a very dear boy, David," said Phoebe softly as her hand
slipped out of her muff and dropped into his and rested there for just
one enchanting half-second. "Dearer than you know in some ways. No, don't
think of coming up with me, you've paid your visit of welcome. Good
night! Yes, I think so--in the afternoon about three o'clock and we can
go on to Mrs. Pepton's reception. Good night again!"
"Phoebe," he called after her, "the one with the yellow fuzz is the girl,
buy her for me if you can flimflam Milly into it! Any old price, you
know. Hurrah, America for the Anglo-Saxons! Hurrah for Milly and Dixie!"