Throughout that afternoon adult members of the Atwater family connection
made futile efforts to secure all the copies of the week's edition of
_The North End Daily Oriole_. It could not be done.
It was a trying time for "the family." Great Aunt Carrie said that she
had the "worst afternoon of any of 'em," because young Newland Sanders
came to her house at two and did not leave until five; all the time
counting over, one by one, the hours he'd spent with Julia since she was
seventeen and turned out, unfortunately, to be a Beauty. Newland had not
restrained himself, Aunt Carrie said, and long before he left she wished
Julia had never been born--and as for Herbert Illingsworth Atwater,
Junior, the only thing to do with him was to send him to some strict
Military School.
Florence's father telephoned to her mother from downtown at three, and
said that Mr. George Plum and the ardent vocalist, Clairdyce, had just
left his office. They had not called in company, however, but
coincidentally; and each had a copy of _The North End Daily Oriole_,
already somewhat worn with folding and unfolding. Mr. Clairdyce's
condition was one of desperate calm, Florence's father said, but Mr.
Plum's agitation left him rather unpresentable for the street, though he
had finally gone forth with his hair just as he had rumpled it, and with
his hat in his hand. They wished the truth, they said: Was it true or
was it not true? Mr. Atwater had told them that he feared Julia was
indeed engaged, though he knew nothing of her fiancé's previous marriage
or marriages, or of the number of his children. They had responded that
they cared nothing about that. This man Crum's record was a matter of
indifference to them, they said. All they wanted to know was whether
Julia was engaged or not--and she was!
"The odd thing to _me_," Mr. Atwater continued to his wife, "is where on
earth Herbert could have got his story about this Crum's being a
widower, and divorced, and with all those children. Do you know if
Julia's written any of the family about these things and they haven't
told the rest of us?"
"No," said Mrs. Atwater. "I'm sure she hasn't. Every letter she's
written to any of us has passed all through the family, and I know I've
seen every one of 'em. She's never said anything about him at all,
except that he was a lawyer. I'm sure _I_ can't imagine where Herbert
got his awful information; I never thought he was the kind of boy to
just make up such things out of whole cloth."
Florence, sitting quietly in a chair near by, with a copy of "Sesame and
Lilies" in her lap, listened to her mother's side of this conversation
with an expression of impersonal interest; and if she could have
realized how completely her parents had forgotten (naturally enough) the
details of their first rambling discussion of Julia's engagement, she
might really have felt as little alarm as she showed.
"Well," said Mr. Atwater, "I'm glad _our_ branch of the family isn't
responsible. That's a comfort, anyhow, especially as people are reading
copies of Herbert's dreadful paper all up and down the town, my clerk
says. He tells me that over at the Unity Trust Company, where young
Murdock Hawes is cashier, they only got hold of one copy, but typewrote
it and multigraphed it, and some of 'em have already learned it by heart
to recite to poor young Hawes. He's the one who sent Julia the three
fivepound boxes of chocolates from New York all at the same time, you
remember."
"Yes," Mrs. Atwater sighed. "Poor thing!"
"Florence is out among the family, I suppose?" he inquired.
"No; she's right here. She's just started to read Ruskin this afternoon.
She says she's going to begin and read all of him straight through.
That's very nice, don't you think?"
He seemed to muse before replying.
"I think that's very nice, at her age especially," Mrs. Atwater urged.
"Don't you?"
"Ye-es! Oh, yes! At least I suppose so. Ah--you don't think--of course
she hasn't had anything at all to do with this?"
"Well, I don't _see_ how she could. You know Aunt Fanny told us how
Herbert declared before them all, only last Sunday night, that Florence
should never have one thing to do with his printing-press, and said they
wouldn't even let her come near it."
"Yes, that's a fact. I'm glad Herbert made it so clear that she can't be
implicated. I suppose the family are all pretty well down on Uncle
Joseph?"
"Uncle Joseph is being greatly blamed," said Mrs. Atwater primly. "He
really ought to have known better than to put such an instrument as a
printing-press into the hands of an irresponsible boy of that age. Of
course it simply encouraged him to print all kinds of things. We none of
us think Uncle Joseph ever dreamed that Herbert would publish, anything
exactly like _this_, and of course Uncle Joseph says himself he never
dreamed such a thing; he's said so time and time and time again, all
afternoon. But of course he's greatly blamed."
"I suppose there've been quite a good many of 'em over there blaming
him?" her husband inquired.
"Yes--until he telephoned to a garage and hired a car and went for a
drive. He said he had plenty of money with him and didn't know when he'd
be back."
"Serves him right," said Mr. Atwater. "Does anybody know where Herbert
is?"
"Not yet!"
"Well----" and he returned to a former theme. "I _am_ glad we aren't
implicated. Florence is right there with you, you say?"
"Yes," Mrs. Atwater replied. "She's right here, reading. You aren't
worried about her, are you?" she added.
"Oh, no; I'm sure it's all right. I only thought----"
"Only thought what?"
"Well, it _did_ strike me as curious," said Mr. Atwater; "especially
after Aunt Fanny's telling us how Herbert declared Florence could never
have a single thing to do with his paper again----"
"Well, what?"
"Well, here's her poem right at the top of it, and a _very_ friendly
item about her history mark of last June. It doesn't seem like Herbert
to be so complimentary to Florence, all of a sudden. Just struck me as
rather curious; that's all."
"Why, yes," said Mrs. Atwater, "it does seem a little odd, when you
think of it."
"Have you _asked_ Florence if she had anything to do with getting out
this week's _Oriole_?"
"Why, no; it never occurred to me, especially after what Aunt Fanny told
us," said Mrs. Atwater. "I'll ask her now."
But she was obliged to postpone putting the intended question. "Sesame
and Lilies" lay sweetly upon the seat of the chair that Florence had
occupied; but Florence herself had gone somewhere else.
She had gone for a long, long ramble; and pedestrians who encountered
her, and happened to notice her expression, were interested; and as they
went on their way several of them interrupted the course of their
meditations to say to themselves that she was the most thoughtful
looking young girl they had ever seen. There was a touch of wistfulness
about her, too; as of one whose benevolence must renounce all hope of
comprehension and reward.
Now, among those who observed her unusual expression was a gentleman of
great dimensions disposed in a closed automobile that went labouring
among mudholes in an unpaved outskirt of the town. He rapped upon the
glass before him, to get the driver's attention, and a moment later the
car drew up beside Florence, as she stood in a deep reverie at the
intersection of two roads.
Uncle Joseph opened the door and took his cigar from his mouth. "Get in,
Florence," he said. "I'll take you for a ride." She started violently;
whereupon he restored the cigar to his mouth, puffed upon it, breathing
heavily the while as was his wont, and added, "I'm not going home. I'm
out for a nice long ride. Get in."
"I was takin' a walk," she said dubiously. "I haf to take a whole lot of
exercise, and I ought to walk and walk and walk. I guess I ought to
keep on walkin'."
"Get in," he said. "I'm out riding. I don't know _when_ I'll get home!"
Florence stepped in, Uncle Joseph closed the door, and the car slowly
bumped onward.
"You know where Herbert is?" Uncle Joseph inquired.
"No," said Florence, in a gentle voice.
"I do," he said. "Herbert and your friend Henry Rooter came to our house
with one of the last copies of the _Oriole_ they were distributing to
subscribers; and after I read it I kind of foresaw that the feller
responsible for their owning a printing-press was going to be in some
sort of family trouble or other. I had quite a talk with 'em and they
hinted they hadn't had much to do with this number of the paper, except
the mechanical end of it; but they wouldn't come out right full with
what they meant. They seemed to have some good reason for protecting a
third party, and said quite a good deal about their fathers and mothers
being but mortal and so on; so Henry and Herbert thought they oughtn't
to expose this third party--whoever she may happen to be. Well, I
thought they better not stay too long, because I was compromised enough
already, without being seen in their company; and I gave 'em something
to help 'em out with at the movies. You can stay at movies an awful long
time, and if you've got money enough to go to several of 'em, why,
you're fixed for pretty near as long as you please. A body ought to be
able to live a couple o' months at the movies for nine or ten dollars, I
should think."
He was silent for a time, then asked, "I don't suppose your papa and
mamma will be worrying about you, will they, Florence?"
"Oh, no!" she said quickly. "Not in the least! There was nothin' at all
for me to do at our house this afternoon."
"That's good," he said, "because before we go back I was thinking some
of driving around by way of Texas."
Florence looked at him trustfully and said nothing. It seemed to her
that he suspected something; she was not sure; but his conversation was
a little peculiar, though not in the least sinister. Indeed she was able
to make out that he had more the air of an accomplice than of a
prosecutor or a detective. Nevertheless, she was convinced that far, far
the best course for her to pursue, during the next few days, would be
one of steadfast reserve. And such a course was congenial to her mood,
which was subdued, not to say apprehensive; though she was sure her
recent conduct, if viewed sympathetically, would be found at least
Christian. The trouble was that probably it would not be viewed
sympathetically. No one would understand how carefully and tactfully she
had prepared the items of the _Oriole_ to lead suavely up to the news of
Aunt Julia's engagement and break it to Noble Dill in a manner that
would save his reason.
Therefore, on account of this probable lack of comprehension on the part
of the family and public, it seemed to her that the only wise and good
course to follow would be to claim nothing for herself, but to allow
Herbert and Henry to remain undisturbed in full credit for publishing
the _Oriole_. This involved a disappointment, it is true; nevertheless,
she decided to bear it.
She had looked forward to surprising "the family" delightfully. As they
fluttered in exclamation about her, she had expected to say, "Oh, the
_poem_ isn't so much, I guess--I wrote it quite a few days ago and I'm
writing a couple new ones now--but I did take quite a lot o' time and
trouble with the rest of the paper, because I had to write every single
word of it, or else let Henry and Herbert try to, and 'course they'd
just of ruined it. Oh, it isn't so much to talk about, I guess; it just
sort of _comes_ to me to do things that way."
Thirteen attempts to exercise a great philanthropy, and every grown
person in sight, with the possible exception of Great-Uncle Joseph, goes
into wholly unanticipated fits of horror. Cause and effect have no
honest relation: Fate operates without justice or even rational
sequence; life and the universe appear to be governed, not in order and
with system, but by Chance, becoming sinister at any moment without
reason.
And while Florence, thus a pessimist, sat beside fat Uncle Joseph during
their long, long drive, relatives of hers were indeed going into fits;
at least, so Florence would have described their gestures and
incoherences of comment. Moreover, after the movies, straight into such
a fitful scene did the luckless Herbert walk when urged homeward by
thoughts of food, at about six that evening. Henry Rooter had strongly
advised him against entering the house.
"You better not," he said earnestly. "_Honest_, you better not,
Herbert!"
"Well, we got apple dumplings for dinner," Herbert said, his tone
showing the strain of mental uncertainty. "Eliza told me this morning we
were goin' to have 'em. I kind of hate to go in, but I guess I better,
Henry."
"_You_ won't see any apple dumplings," Henry predicted.
"Well, I believe I better try it, Henry."
"You better come home with me. My father and mother'll be perfectly
willing to have you."
"I know that," said Herbert. "But I guess I better go in and try it,
anyhow, Henry. I didn't have anything to do with what's in the _Oriole_.
It's every last word ole Florence's doing. I haven't got any more right
to be picked on for that than a child."
"Yes," Henry admitted. "But if you go and tell 'em so, I bet she'd get
even with you some way that would probably get _me_ in trouble, too,
before we get through with the job. _I_ wouldn't tell 'em if I was you,
Herbert!"
"Well, I wasn't intending to," Herbert responded gloomily; and the
thought of each, unknown to the other, was the same, consisting of a
symbolic likeness of Wallie Torbin at his worst. "I _ought_ to tell on
Florence; by rights I ought," said Herbert; "but I've decided I won't.
There's no tellin' what she wouldn't do. Not that she could do anything
to _me_, particyourly----"
"Nor me, either," his friend interposed hurriedly. "I don't worry about
anything like that! Still, if I was you I wouldn't tell. She's only a
girl, we got to remember."
"Yes," said Herbert. "That's the way _I_ look at it, Henry; and the way
I look at it is just simply this: long as she _is_ a girl, why, simply
let her go. You can't tell what she'd do, and so what's the use to go
and tell on a girl?"
"That's the way _I_ look at it," Henry agreed. "What's the use? If I was
in your place, I'd act just the same way you do."
"Well," said Herbert, "I guess I better go on in the house, Henry. It's
a good while after dark."
"You're makin' a big mistake!" Henry Rooter called after him. "_You_
won't see any apple dumplings, I bet a hunderd dollars! You better come
on home with me."
Herbert no more than half opened his front door before he perceived that
his friend's advice had been excellent. So clearly Herbert perceived
this, that he impulsively decided not to open the door any farther, but
on the contrary to close it and retire; and he would have done so, had
his mother not reached forth and detained him. She was, in fact, just
inside that door, standing in the hall with one of his great-aunts, one
of his aunts, two aunts-by-marriage, and an elderly unmarried cousin,
who were all just on the point of leaving. However, they changed their
minds and decided to remain, now that Herbert was among them.
The captive's father joined them, a few minutes later, but it had
already become clear to Herbert that _The North End Daily Oriole_ was in
one sense a thing of the past, though in another sense this former owner
and proprietor was certain that he would never hear the last of it.
However, on account of the life of blackmail and slavery now led by the
members of the old régime, the _Oriole's_ extinction was far less
painful to Herbert than his father supposed; and the latter wasted a
great deal of severity, insisting that the printing-press should be
returned that very night to Uncle Joseph. Herbert's heartiest
retrospective wish was that the ole printing-press had been returned to
Uncle Joseph long ago.
"If you can find him to give it to!" Aunt Harriet suggested. "Nobody
_knows_ where he goes when he gets the way he did this afternoon when we
were discussing it with him! I only hope he'll be back to-night!"
"He can't stay away forever," Aunt Fanny remarked. "That garage is
charging him five dollars an hour for the automobile he's in, and surely
even Joseph will decide there's a limit to wildness _some_ time!"
"I don't care when he comes back," Herbert's father declared grimly.
"Whenever he does he's got to take that printing-press back--and Herbert
will be let out of the house long enough to carry it over. His mother or
I will go with him."
Herbert bore much more than this. He had seated himself on the third
step of the stairway, and maintained as much dogged silence as he could.
Once, however, they got a yelp of anguish out of him. It was when Cousin
Virginia said: "Oh, Herbert, Herbert! How could you make up that
terrible falsehood about Mr. Crum? And, _think_ of it; right on the same
page with your cousin Florence's pure little poem!"
Herbert uttered sounds incoherent but loud, and expressive of a supreme
physical revulsion. The shocked audience readily understood that he
liked neither Cousin Virginia's chiding nor Cousin Florence's pure
little poem.
"Shame!" said his father.
Herbert controlled himself. It could be seen that his spirit was broken,
when Aunt Fanny mourned, shaking her head at him, smiling ruefully:
"Oh, if boys could only be girls!"
Herbert just looked at her.
"The worst thing," said his father;--"that is, if there's any part of it
that's worse than another--the worst thing about it all is this rumour
about Noble Dill."
"What about that poor thing?" Aunt Harriet asked. "We haven't heard."
"Why, I walked up from downtown with old man Dill," said Mr. Atwater,
"and the Dill family are all very much worried. It seems that Noble
started downtown after lunch, as usual, and pretty soon he came back to
the house and he had a copy of this awful paper that little Florence had
given him, and----"
"_Who_ gave it to him?" Aunt Fanny asked. "_Who_?"
"Little Florence."
"Why, that's curious," Cousin Virginia murmured. "I must telephone and
ask her mother about that."
The brooding Herbert looked up, and there was a gleam in his dogged eye;
but he said nothing.
"Go on," Aunt Harriet urged. "What did Noble do?"
"Why, his mother said he just went up to his room and changed his shoes
and necktie----"
"I thought so," Aunt Fanny whispered. "Crazy!"
"And then," Mr. Atwater continued, "he left the house and she supposed
he'd gone down to the office; but she was uneasy, and telephoned his
father. Noble hadn't come. He didn't come all afternoon, and he didn't
go back to the house; and they telephoned around to every place he
_could_ go that they know of, and they couldn't find him or hear
anything about him at all--not anywhere." Mr. Atwater coughed, and
paused.
"But what," Aunt Harriet cried;--"_what_ do they think's become of him?"
"Old man Dill said they were all pretty anxious," said Mr. Atwater.
"They're afraid Noble has--they're afraid he's disappeared."
Aunt Fanny screamed.
Then, in perfect accord, they all turned to look at Herbert, who rose
and would have retired upstairs had he been permitted.
As that perturbing evening wore on, word gradually reached the most
outlying members of the Atwater family connection that Noble Dill was
missing. Ordinarily, this bit of news would have caused them no severe
anxiety. Noble's person and intellect were so
commonplace--"insignificant" was the term usually preferred in his own
circle--that he was considered to be as nearly negligible as it is
charitable to consider a fellow-being. True, there was one thing that
set him apart; he was found worthy of a superlative when he fell in love
with Julia; and of course this distinction caused him to become better
known and more talked about than he had been in his earlier youth.
However, the eccentricities of a person in such an extremity of love are
seldom valued except as comedy, and even then with no warmth of heart
for the comedian, but rather with an incredulous disdain; so it is safe
to say that under other circumstances, Noble might have been missing,
indeed, and few of the Atwaters would have missed him. But as matters
stood they worried a great deal about him, fearing that a rash act on
his part might reflect notoriety upon themselves on account of their
beautiful relative--and _The North End Daily Oriole_. And when nine
o'clock came and Mrs. Dill reported to Herbert's father, over the
telephone, that nothing had yet been heard of her son, the pressure of
those who were blaming the _Oriole_ more than they blamed Julia became
so wearing that Herbert decided he would rather spend the remaining days
of his life running away from Wallie Torbin than put in any more of such
a dog's evening as he _was_ putting in. Thus he defined it.
He made a confession; that is to say, it was a proclamation. He
proclaimed his innocence. He began history with a description of events
distinctly subsequent to Sunday pastimes with Patty Fairchild, and
explained how he and Henry had felt that their parents would not always
be with them, and as their parents wished them to be polite, they had
resolved to be polite to Florence. Proceeding, he related in detail her
whole journalistic exploit.
Of the matter in hand he told the perfect and absolute truth--and was
immediately refuted, confuted, and demonstrated to be a false witness by
Aunt Fanny, Aunt Carrie, and Cousin Virginia, who had all heard him
vehemently declare, no longer ago than the preceding Sunday evening,
that he and his partner had taken secure measures to prevent Florence
from ever again setting foot within the Newspaper Building. In addition,
he was quite showered with definitions; and these, though so various,
all sought to phrase but the one subject: his conduct in seeking to drag
Florence into the mire, when she was absent and could not defend
herself. Poor Florence would answer later in the evening, he was told
severely; and though her cause was thus championed against the slander,
it is true that some of her defenders felt stirrings of curiosity in
regard to Florence. In fact, there was getting to be something almost
like a cloud upon her reputation. There were several things for her to
explain;--among them, her taking it upon herself to see that Noble
received a copy of the _Oriole_, and also her sudden departure from home
and rather odd protraction of absence therefrom. It was not thought she
was in good company. Uncle Joseph had telephoned from a suburb that they
were dining at a farmhouse and would thence descend to the general
region of the movies.
"_Nobody_ knows what that man'll do, when he decides to!" Aunt Carrie
said nervously. "Letting the poor child stay up so late! She ought to be
in bed this minute, even if it is Saturday night! Or else she ought to
be here to listen to her own bad little cousin trying to put his
terrible responsibility on her shoulders."
One item of this description of himself the badgered Herbert could not
bear in silence, although he had just declared that since the truth was
so ill-respected among his persecutors he would open his mouth no more
until the day of his death. He passed over "bad," but furiously stated
his height in feet, inches, and fractions of inches.
Aunt Fanny shook her head in mourning. "That may be, Herbert," she said
gently. "But you must try to realize it can't bring poor young Mr. Dill
back to his family."
Again Herbert just looked at her. He had no indifference more profound
than that upon which her strained conception of the relation between
cause and effect seemed to touch;--from his point of view, to be missing
should be the lightest of calamities. It is true that he was concerned
with the restoration of Noble Dill to the rest of the Dills so far as
such an event might affect his own incomparable misfortunes, but not
otherwise. He regarded Noble and Noble's disappearance merely as unfair
damage to himself, and he continued to look at this sorrowing great-aunt
of his until his thoughts made his strange gaze appear to her so
hardened that she shook her head and looked away.
"Poor young Mr. Dill!" she said. "If someone could only have been with
him and kept talking to him until he got used to the idea a little!"
Cousin Virginia nodded comprehendingly. "Yes, it might have tided him
over," she said. "He wasn't handsome, nor impressive, of course, nor
anything like that, but he always spoke so nicely to people on the
street. I'm sure he never harmed even a kitten, poor soul!"
"I'm sure he never did," Herbert's mother agreed gently. "Not even a
kitten. I do wonder where he is now."
But Aunt Fanny uttered a little cry of protest. "I'm afraid we may
hear!" she said. "Any moment!"