and while it has as yet borne no beeches, I think if we give it time,
and it withstands the rigors of the climate, it will produce its fruit.
But it was not of its possibilities as a beech-bearing tree that I
intended to speak. I wanted to indicate to you by a material object the
value of having a hired man who likes to lean against things. At the
close of this last winter that tree, instead of being as erect as a
grenadier, as it now is, was all askew. The strong westerly winds which
are constantly blowing across that open stretch bent the thing until it
seemed that the tree was bound to be deformed; but Mike overcame the
difficulty. He would go out day after day and sit down beside it and
lean against it for two and three hours at a time, with the result that
the tendency to curve was overcome, and a tree that I feared was doomed
to fail now bids fair to resemble a successful telegraph-pole in its
uprightness. And, of course, the added warmth of his body pressing down
upon the earth which covers its roots gave it an added impulse to
grow."
"It is a wonderful system," smiled Mr. Brief. "I wonder it is not
adopted everywhere."
"It is, pretty much," said the Idiot. "Most hired men do the same thing.
I don't think Mike differs radically from others of his kind. Of course,
there are exceptions. My neighbor Jimpsonberry, for instance, has a man
who is so infernally unrestful that he makes everybody tired. He is up
every morning mowing Jimpsonberry's lawn at five o'clock, waking up
every sleepy soul within ear-shot with the incessant and disturbing
clicking of his machine. Mike would never think of making such a
nuisance of himself. Furthermore, Jimpsonberry's lawn is kept so
close-cropped that the grass doesn't get any chance, and in the heat of
midsummer turns to a dull brick-red."
After a pause, during which the company seemed to be deeply cogitating
the philosophical bearing of the subject under discussion, the Idiot
resumed:
"There is another aspect of this matter," he said, "which Jimpsonberry's
man brings to my mind. You know as well as I do that heat is
contagious. If you feel as cool as a cucumber, and then all of a sudden
see somebody who is dripping with perspiration and looking for all the
world like a human kettle simmering on a kitchen-range, you begin to
simmer yourself. It is mere sympathy, of course, but you simmer just the
same, get uncomfortable and hot in the collar, and are shortly as badly
off as the other fellow. So it is with Jimpsonberry's man. Time and time
again he has spoiled all my pleasure by making me realize by a glance at
his red face and sweating arms how beastly hot it is, when before I had
seen him I felt tolerably comfortable. Mike, on the other hand, is not
so inconsiderate, and I am confident would let the grass grow a mile
high before he would consent to interfere with my temperature by pushing
the mower up and down the lawn on a humid day."
"Do you keep this interesting specimen of still life all through the
year?" asked Mr. Brief, "or do you give him a much-needed vacation in
winter? I should think he would be worn out with all this standing
around, for nothing that I know of is more tiresome than doing
nothing."
"No," said the Idiot. "Mike never seems to need a vacation. Sitting down
and leaning against things and standing around don't seem to tire him in
the least. It might tire you or me, but you see he's used to it. The
only effect it has on him, as I view the matter, is that it wears out
his clothes. It doesn't impair his lack of vigor at all. So by the
simple act of occasionally renewing his wardrobe, which I do every time
I discard a suit of my own, I revive his wasted vitality, and he does
not require to be sent to Europe, or to take an extended tour in the
White Mountains to recuperate. I keep him all through the winter, and
his system is quite the same then as in summer, except that he does his
sitting around and leaning indoors instead of in the open."
"I suppose he looks after the furnace and keeps the walks clear of snow
in winter time?" suggested Mr. Pedagog, who was beginning to take an
interest in this marvellously restful personage.
[Illustration: "'HE SHOVELS OFF A FOOT-PATH'"]
"Yes," said the Idiot; "and he attends to the windows as well. As a
minder of the furnace he is invaluable. My house is as cool as a
roof-garden all through the winter, and thanks to his unwillingness to
over-exert himself shovelling coal into the furnace, I burn only about
half as much as my neighbors, and my house is never overheated. This in
itself is an indication of the virtue of Mike's method. One-half of the
colds contracted by children nowadays are the result of overheated
houses. Mike's method gives me a cool house at very moderate expense,
owing to the great saving of coal, the children do not get colds because
of overheating, and the expense of having a doctor every other day is
averted. Then his snow-shovelling scheme goes back to the first
principles of nature. Mike is not overawed by convention, and instead of
following the steps of other men who shovel the snow entirely off, he
shovels off a footpath to enable me to go to business, and then sits
down and oversees the sun while it melts the balance. Sometimes, if the
sun does not do the work promptly enough to suit him, he gets up little
contests for the children. He divides up certain portions of the walk
into equal parts, and starts the small boys on a race to see which one
will get the portion assigned to him cleaned off first, the prize being
something in the nature of an apple, which the cook orders from the
market. I believe my son Thomas won ten apples last winter, although I
am told that the Jimpsonberry boy, whose father's man is cross, and
insists on doing all the work himself, is the champion snow-shoveller of
the street."
"Yes, he is, pa," put in Tommy. "Mike owes him 'leven apples. I only won
eight."
"Well, that is a very good record, Thomas," said the Idiot, "and I will
see to it that next winter you have a brand-new snow-shovel with which
to enter the contest."
"Mike lets us chop the kindling-wood, too," said Tommy, suddenly
perceiving a chance to put in a good word for the genial Mike. "I think
he's the nicest hired man as ever was."
"He'll stop anything he's doing to talk to me," ventured Mollie, not
wishing to be backward in laying wreaths upon the brow of their friend.
"Yes, I have noticed that," said the Idiot. "Indeed, next to his extreme
restfulness there is no quality that I know of in Mike that shines out
so conspicuously as his intense love for children. He will neglect his
own interests, as Mollie has suggested, to talk to the little ones, and
I rather like him for it. No boy dares go near the Jimpsonberry man, who
has exerted himself into a perpetual state of nervous exhaustion."
"Well, if he cleans your windows, that is something," observed Mrs.
Pedagog, whose experience in keeping a boarding-house years before
entitled her to speak as one having authority.
"Unless his system is the same in that work as in the other branches
committed to his care," said Mr. Brief.
[Illustration: "'SPEND A WHOLE DAY ON ONE WINDOW'"]
"It isn't quite," said the Idiot. "He really does exert himself in
window-cleaning. I have frequently seen him spend a whole day on one
window. His window-washing system is a very ingenious one,
nevertheless."
"It is, indeed," said Mrs. Idiot, with a show of feeling.
"A new window-washing system?" grinned Mr. Pedagog.
"Yes," said the Idiot. "It is his own invention. He washes them on the
outside in summer and on the inside in winter. The result is this
opalescent glass which you see. You would hardly guess that these
windows are of French plate. Still, we don't mind so much. I couldn't
ask him to wash them on the outside in winter, it is so dreadfully cold,
and in the summer, of course, they are always open, and no one, unless
he were disagreeable enough to go snooping about after unpleasant
details, would notice that they are not immaculate."
"And you pay this man forty dollars for this?" demanded Mr. Brief.
"Oh, for this and other things. I pay him two dollars a month for the
work he does. I pay him ten dollars a month because he's good to the
children. I pay him ten dollars more for his civility, which is
unvarying--he always puts his hat on when he comes into the house,
having noticed, perhaps, that only those who are my social equals are
entitled to appear bareheaded in my presence."
"And the other eighteen?" persisted the lawyer, by nature a
cross-examiner.
"Well, I don't grudge him that because--" a sort of a fond light lit up
the Idiot's eyes as he gazed down upon Mike, still sitting on the
tennis-court--"I don't grudge him that other eighteen dollars because it
costs Mike twenty dollars a month to live; and he uses the rest of it to
put his boy through college, so that when he grows up to be a man he
will be something more than a hired man."
"Ah!" said Mr. Brief.
"Yes," said the Idiot; "I found that out from a third party some time
ago, and I thought after all I'd keep him, for I know nobody else would
have him, and then what would become of the boy in college?"
IX
ON SOCIAL ACCOUNTS
"It's rather strange, I think," observed Mrs. Idiot one evening, as she
and the Idiot sat down to dine, "that the Dawkinses haven't been here
for three or four months."
"I've noticed it myself," said the Idiot. "We used to see 'em every day
about. What's up? You and Polly Dawkins had a fight?"
"Not that I know of," said Mrs. Idiot. "The last time we met she was
very cordial, and asked most affectionately after you and the children.
I presumed that possibly you and Dick had had some kind of a falling
out."
"Not a bit of it. Dick and I couldn't quarrel any more than you and
Polly could. Perhaps as we grow older our ideals differ. Polly's rather
anthropological in her talks, isn't she?"
"A trifle," said Mrs. Idiot. "And musical and literary and scientific."
"While you?" queried the Idiot.
[Illustration: "'WELL, I'M FOND OF GOLF'"]
"Well, I'm fond of golf and--ah--well--"
"Golf again," laughed the Idiot. "I guess that's it, Bess. When a woman
wants to talk about the origin of the species and has to hear about a
splendid putt, and her observations upon the sonata are invariably
interrupted by animadversions upon the morals of caddies, and her
criticisms of Browning end in a discussion of the St. Andrew's Rules,
she's apt to shy off into a more congenial atmosphere, don't you think?"
"I am sure," retorted Mrs. Idiot, "that while I admit I am more
interested in golf than in anything else outside of you and the
children, I can and do talk sometimes of other things than caddies, and
beautiful drives, and stymies. You are very much mistaken if you think
otherwise."
"That is very true, my dear," said the Idiot. "And nobody knows it
better than I do. I've heard you talk charmingly about lots of things
besides stymies, and foozles, and putts, and drives, but you don't know
anything about the men of the Stone Age, and you couldn't tell the
difference between a sonata and a fugue any more than I. Furthermore,
you have no patience with Browning, so that when Polly Dawkins asks if
you like _Sordello_, you are more likely than not to say that you never
ate any, but on the whole for small fish prefer whitebait."
Mrs. Idiot laughed.
"No, indeed," she replied. "I'd fall back on golf if Polly mentioned
_Sordello_ to me. You may remember that you sent it to me when we were
engaged, and I loved you so much--then--that I read it. If I hadn't
loved you I couldn't have done it."
"Well," smiled the Idiot, "what did you think of it?"
"I think Browning had a good lie, but he foozled," said Mrs. Idiot, with
her eyes atwinkle, and the Idiot subsided for at least ten seconds.
"I wish you'd say that to Polly some time," he observed. "It's so very
true, and put with an originality which cannot but appeal to the most
hardened of literary women."
"I will if I ever get the chance," said Mrs. Idiot.
"Suppose we make the chance?" suggested the Idiot. "Let's go down there
and call to-night. I'll work the conversation up so that you can get
that off as an impromptu."
[Illustration: "AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL TEA"]
"No," said Mrs. Idiot. "I don't think we'd better. In the first place,
Mrs. Whalker told me yesterday that Polly is to read a paper on Balzac
before the S. F. M. E. to-morrow evening, and on Friday morning she is
to discuss the 'Influence of Mozart on De Koven' before the Musical
Mothers' Meeting, and on Saturday afternoon she is going to have an
anthropological tea at her house, which she is to open with some
speculations as to whether in the Glacial Period dudes were addicted to
the use of cigarettes."
"Great Scott!" said the Idiot. "This is her busy week."
"Tolerably so," said Mrs. Idiot. "She has probably reserved this evening
to read up on Balzac for to-morrow's essay, so I think, my dear, we'd
better not go."
"Right as usual," said the Idiot. And then he added, "Poor Dawkins, who
is taking care of him now?"
"I think," said Mrs. Idiot, "that possibly Mrs. Dawkins has sublet the
contract for looking after her husband and children to the United
States Housekeeping Company Limited."
The Idiot gazed blankly at his wife, and awaited an explanation.
[Illustration: "'THE BABY IS ROCKED TO SLEEP EVERY NIGHT'"]
"An organization, my dear," she continued, "formed by a number of
well-meaning and remorseful widows who, having lost their husbands,
begin to appreciate their virtues, and who, finding themselves
sympathetic when it is too late, are devoting themselves to the husbands
of others who are neglected. A subscription of five hundred dollars will
secure the supervision of all the domestic arrangements of a
home--marketing, engagement and discharge of domestics, house-cleaning,
buttons sewed on, darning done, care of flowers, wifely duties
generally; for one thousand dollars they will bring up the children, and
see that the baby is rocked to sleep every night, and suitably
interested in elevating narratives and poems like Joseph's coat of many
colors, and Tom, Tom the Piper's Son. This enables an advanced woman
like Mrs. Dawkins to devote her mornings to the encyclopedias, her
afternoons to the public libraries, and her evenings to the functions
whereat she may read the papers which her devotion to the encyclopedias
and the libraries has brought forth."
"Excuse me, my dear Bess," said the Idiot, rising. "I wish to telephone
Dr. Simmons."
"For what--for whom?" demanded the lady.
"You, of course," returned the Idiot. "You are developing alarming
symptoms. You give every indication of a bad attack of professional
humor. Your 'International Widows Company for the Protection and
Amelioration of Neglected Husbandry' proves that!"
Mrs. Idiot laughed again.
[Illustration: "POOR DICK DAWKINS ISN'T TAKEN CARE OF AT ALL'"]
"Oh, I didn't say that there really is such an institution!" she cried.
"I said that I supposed there was, for if there isn't, poor Dick Dawkins
isn't taken care of at all."
"Well, I'm sorry for it all, anyhow," said the Idiot, seriously.
"They're both of 'em good friends of ours, and I hate to see two
families that have been so close drawing apart."
Just then Mollie and Tommy came in.
"Mamma, Willie Dawkins says he can't come to our party because his ma
won't let him," said Mollie. "She says we don't never go down there."
"That's it," said the Idiot. "Mrs. Dawkins has got so many irons in the
fire she's begun to keep social books. I'll bet you she's got a ledger
and a full set of double-entry account-books charging up calls payable
and calls receivable."
"I don't see how she can get along unless she has," replied Mrs. Idiot.
"With all her clubs and church societies and varied social obligations
she needs an expert accountant to keep track of them all."
"I suppose a promise to read a paper on Balzac," put in the Idiot, "is
something like a three-months' note. It's easy to promise to pay, with
three months in which to prepare, but you've got to keep track of the
date and meet the obligation when it falls due. As for me, I'd rather
meet the note."
"That is about it," said Mrs. Idiot. "If a woman goes into society
properly she's got to make a business of it. For instance, there are
about ten dances given at the club here every year. Polly is patroness
for every one of 'em. There are twenty-five teas during the spring and
summer months. Polly assists at half of them, and gives a fifth of
them. She's president of the King's Daughters, corresponding secretary
of the Dorcas, treasurer of the Red Cross Society, and goodness knows
what all!"
"I can quite understand why she needs to keep accounts--social
accounts," said the Idiot. "But it's rather queer, don't you think, that
she has the children on her books? The idea of saying that Jimmie and
Gladys can't come to Mollie's party because Mollie hasn't been down
there--why, it's nonsense!"
"No," said Mrs. Idiot, "it is merely logical. Whatever Polly Dawkins
does she tries to do thoroughly. I've no doubt she'll do Balzac up
completely. If she keeps social books showing call balances in her favor
or against herself she might as well go the whole thing and write the
children in--only she's made a mistake, as far as we are concerned,
unless she means to write us off without squaring up."
"You talk like a financier," said the Idiot, admiringly. "What do you
know about writing off?"
"I used to help my father with his accounts, occasionally," said Mrs.
Idiot. "Polly Dawkins's books ought to show a balance of one call in
our favor. That's really the reason I'm not willing to call there
to-night. She's so queer about it all, and, as a matter of fact, she
owes me a call. I'm not going to overwhelm her with an added
obligation."
"Ho!" smiled the Idiot. "You keep books yourself, eh?"
"I keep score," said Mrs. Idiot. "I learned that playing golf."
"It's a bad thing to keep score in golf," said the Idiot.
"So they say, but I find it amusing," she replied.
"And how many calls does Mrs. Wilkins owe you?" demanded the Idiot.
"I don't know," returned the wife. "And I don't care. When I want to see
Mrs. Wilkins I call on her whether she owes me a call or not, but with
Polly Dawkins it's different. She began the book-keeping, and as long as
she likes it I must try to live up to her ideas. If social intercourse
develops into a business, business requirements must be observed."
"It's a good idea in a way," said the Idiot, reflectively. "But if you
make a business of society, why don't you carry it to a logical
conclusion? Balance your books, if you mean business, every month, and
send your debtors a statement of their account."
"Well, I will if you wish me to," said Mrs. Idiot. "Suppose they don't
pay?"
"Dun 'em," said the Idiot. And then the matter dropped.
On the fifth of the following month Mr. and Mrs. Idiot were seated
comfortably in their library. The children had gone to bed, and they
were enjoying the bliss of a quiet evening at home, when the door-bell
rang, and in a moment or two the maid ushered in Mr. and Mrs. Richard
Dawkins, preceded, of course, by their cards. The young householders
were delighted, and Polly Dawkins was never more charming. She looked
well, and she talked well, and there was not a symptom of any diminution
of the old-time friendship perceptible--only she did appear to be tired
and care-worn.
The evening wore away pleasantly. The chat reverted to old times, and by
degrees Mrs. Dawkins seemed to grow less tired.
About ten o'clock the Idiot invited his neighbor to adjourn to the
smoking-room, where they each lit a cigar and indulged in a
companionable glass.
"Idiot," said Dawkins, when his wife called out to him that it was time
to go home, "your wife is a wonder. I've been trying for three months to
make Polly come up here and she wouldn't. Keeps books, you know--now.
Has to--so much to do. Thought you owed us a call, but received your
bill Wednesday--looked it up--questioned servants--found you were
right."
"Bill," cried the Idiot. "What bill?"
"Why, the one Mrs. Idiot sent--this," said Dawkins, taking a piece of
paper out of his pocket. "Confoundedly good joke."
The Idiot took up the piece of paper. It was type-written--on Tommy's
machine--and read as follows:
November 1 1898
MR. AND MRS. RICHARD DAWKINS
_To Mr. and Mrs. Idiot Dr._
September 20 Evening call 1
Account overdue.
Please remit.
"Great Scott!" laughed the Idiot.
"My dear," said the Idiot after the Dawkinses had gone, "that bill of
yours was a great idea."
"It wasn't my idea at all--it was yours," said Mrs. Idiot, laughing.
"You said we ought to be business-like to the last and send out a
statement on the first of the month. I sent it. And they paid up."
"Richard," said Mrs. Dawkins, as they drove home, "did you get a
receipt?"
X
AS TO SANTA CLAUS
"I am very glad I didn't take Tommy and Mollie to church with me this
morning," said Mrs. Idiot, on her return from service. "It would have
broken their hearts to have heard the sermon. I don't know what gets
into Dr. Preachly sometimes. He gave us a blast about Santa Claus."
"A blast about Santa Claus, eh!" said the Idiot. "And how did he blast
the good old saint?"
"He said he was a lie," rejoined Mrs. Idiot, indignantly, "and that it
was the duty of every Christian in the land to see that the lie was
exposed."
"Great heavens!" cried the Idiot, in astonishment. "Doesn't Dr. Preachly
believe in Santa Claus? Poor old Preachly! How much he has lost! Did he
say anything about Hop o' My Thumb and Cinderella?"
"No, of course not. Why should he?" returned Mrs. Idiot.
"Oh, because; I suppose that a man who doesn't believe in Santa Claus is
a skeptic on the subject of Hop o' My Thumb, and Rumpelstiltzken, and
Cinderella, and Jack the Giant-Killer, and all the rest of that noble
army of childhood friends," explained the Idiot.
"He didn't mention them," said Mrs. Idiot. "He--"
"He's going to preach a series of sermons on lies, I presume," said the
Idiot. "He's tackled Santa Claus first, as being the most seasonable of
the lot, eh? Jack the Giant-Killer ought to be a good subject for a
ministerial attack."
"Well, he pulled poor old Santa Claus to pieces," said Mrs. Idiot, with
a sigh.
"Why didn't you bring me a piece of him as a souvenir?" demanded the
Idiot. "Just a lock of his hair for my collection of curios? What was
done with the remains?"
Mrs. Idiot laughed as she pulled over her gloves and smoothed them upon
her lap.
"There weren't any remains," she answered. "When Dr. Preachly got
through with him there wasn't a vestige of the old chap left. To begin
with, he was a lie, the doctor said. Then he went on and showed that he
was a wickedly partial old fellow--a very snob, he called him--because
he gives fine things to the children of the rich and little or nothing
to the children of the poor. He filled the little folk with hope and
brought them disappointment, and so on. It was a powerful sermon,
although I wanted to weep over it."
"Go ahead and weep," said the Idiot; "it's the appropriate thing to do.
I don't wonder you wanted to cry; you've always liked Dr. Preachly."
"Of course," said Mrs. Idiot.
"And you hate to see him make a--ah--a--well, you know--of himself in
the pulpit; and I quite agree with you. I rather like Preachly myself.
It is too bad to see a well-meaning man like that batting his brains out
against the rock of Gibraltar, whether suicide is sin or not. What has
put him in this despondent mood? Do you suppose he has heard?"
"Heard what?" demanded Mrs. Idiot.
"About the slippers," said the Idiot.
"What slippers?" asked his wife.
"Oh, the same old slippers," said the Idiot. "You know the ones I
mean--the ones he's going to get from Santa Claus. Really, I'm not
surprised, after all. If I were a minister, and realized that truckloads
of embroidered slippers of every size and color, covered with stags of
red worsted jumping over rivulets of yellow floss, with split agates for
eyes set in over the toe, were to be dumped in my front yard every
Christmas Eve by that old reprobate, Santa Claus, I think I, too, would
set him down as a fraud, or an overworked cobbler, anyhow."
[Illustration: "'DR. PREACHLY ONLY GOT EIGHT PAIRS LAST XMAS'"]
"That's exaggerated--a comic-paper idea," said Mrs. Idiot. "I don't
believe the average clergyman gets so many slippers. Dr. Preachly only
got eight pairs last Christmas."