his right the freedom of gesture which was an intermittent necessity
when he talked. In the matter of dress, Genesis had always been among
the most informal of his race, but to-day there was a change almost
unnerving to the Caucasian eye. He wore a balloonish suit of purple,
strangely scalloped at pocket and cuff, and more strangely decorated
with lines of small parasite buttons, in color blue, obviously buttons
of leisure. His bulbous new shoes flashed back yellow fire at the
embarrassed sun, and his collar (for he had gone so far) sent forth
other sparkles, playing upon a polished surface over an inner graining
of soot. Beneath it hung a simple, white, soiled evening tie, draped in
a manner unintended by its manufacturer, and heavily overburdened by a
green glass medallion of the Emperor Tiberius, set in brass.
“Yes’m,” said Genesis. “Now I’m in ’at Swim--flyin’ roun’ ev’y even’
wif all lem blue-vein people--I say, ‘Mus’ go buy me some blue-vein
clo’es! Ef I’m go’n a _start_, might’s well start _high_!’ So firs’,
I buy me thishere gol’ necktie pin wi’ thishere lady’s face carved out
o’ green di’mon, sittin’ in the middle all ’at gol’. ’Nen I buy me pair
Royal King shoes. I got a frien’ o’ mine, thishere Blooie Bowers; he
say Royal King shoes same kineo’ shoes _he_ wear, an’ I walk straight
in ’at sto’ where they keep ’em at. ‘Don’ was’e my time showin’ me no
ole-time shoes,’ I say. ‘Run out some them big, yella, lump-toed Royal
Kings befo’ my eyes, an’ firs’ pair fit me I pay price, an’ wear em’
right off on me!’ ’Nen I got me thishere suit o’ clo’es--_oh_, oh! Sign
on ’em in window: ‘Ef you wish to be bes’-dress’ man in town take me
home fer six dolluhs ninety-sevum cents.’ ‘’At’s kine o’ suit Genesis
need,’ I say. ‘Ef Genesis go’n a start dressin’ high, might’s well
start top!’”
Jane nodded gravely, comprehending the reasonableness of this view.
“What made you decide to start, Genesis?” she asked earnestly. “I mean,
how did it happen you began to get this way?”
“Well, suh, ’t all come ’bout right like kine o’ slidin’ into it ’stid
o’ hoppin’ an’ jumpin’. I’z spen’ the even’ at ’at lady’s house, Fanny,
what cook nex’ do’, las’ year. Well, suh, ’at lady Fanny, she quit
privut cookin’, she kaytliss--”
“She’s what?” Jane asked. “What’s that mean, Genesis--kaytliss?”
“She kaytuhs,” he exclaimed. “Ef it’s a man you call him kaytuh; ef
it’s a lady she’s a kaytliss. She does kaytun fer all lem blue-vein
fam’lies in town. She make refeshmuns, bring waituhs--’at’s kaytun. You
maw give big dinnuh, she have Fanny kaytuh, an’ don’t take no trouble
’tall herself. Fanny take all ’at trouble.”
“I see,” said Jane. “But I don’t see how her bein’ a kaytliss started
you to dressin’ so high. Genesis.”
“Thishere way, Fanny say, ‘Look here, Genesis, I got big job t’morra
night an’ I’m man short, ’count o’ havin’ to have a ’nouncer.’”
“A what?”
“Fanny talk jes’ that way. Goin’ be big dinnuh potty, an’ thishere
blue-vein fam’ly tell Fanny they want whole lot of extry sploogin’;
tell her put fine lookin cullud man stan’ by drawin’-room do’--ask
ev’ybody name an’ holler out whatever name they say, jes’ as they walk
in. Thishere fam’ly say they goin’ show what’s what, ’nis town, an’
they boun’ Fanny go git ’em a ’nouncer. ‘Well, what’s mattuh _you_
doin’ ’at ’nouncin’?’ Fanny say. ‘Who--me?’ I tell her. ‘Yes, you kin
too!’ she say, an’ she say len’ me ’at waituh suit yoosta b’long ole
Henry Gimlet what die’ when he owin’ Fanny sixteen dolluhs--an’ Fanny
tuck an’ keep ’at waituh suit. She use ’at suit on extry waituhs when
she got some on her hands what ain’ got no waituh suit. ‘You wear ’at
suit,’ Fanny say, ‘an’ you be good ’nouncer, ’cause you’ a fine, big
man, an’ got a big gran’ voice; nen you learn befo’ long be a waituh,
Genesis, ’an git dolluh an’ half ev’y even’ you waitin’, ’sides all ’at
money you make cuttin’ grass daytime.’ Well, suh, I’z stan’ up doin’
’at ’nouncin’ ve’y nex’ night. White lady an’ ge’lmun walk todes my
do’, I step up to ’em--I step up to ’em thisaway.” Here Genesis found
it pleasant to present the scene with some elaboration. He dropped
the handle of the freezer, rose, assumed a stately but ingratiating
expression and “stepped up” to the imagined couple, using a pacing
and rhythmic gait--a conservative prance, which plainly indicated the
simultaneous operation of an orchestra. Then bending graciously, as
though the persons addressed were of dwarfish stature, “’Scuse me,” he
said, “but kin I please be so p’lite as to ’quiah you’ name?” For a
moment he listened attentively, then nodded, and, returning with the
same aristocratic undulations to an imaginary doorway near the freezer,
“Misto an’ Missuz Orlosko Rinktum!” he proclaimed sonorously.
“_Who?_” cried Jane, fascinated. “Genesis, ’nounce that again, right
away!”
Genesis heartily complied.
“Misto an’ Missuz Orlosko Rinktum!” he bawled.
“Was that really their names?” she asked eagerly.
“Well, I kine o’ fergit,” Genesis admitted, resuming his work with the
freezer. “Seem like I rickalect _somebody_ got name good deal like
what I say, ’cause some mighty blue-vein names at ’at dinnuh-potty,
yes-suh! But I on’y git to be ’nouncer one time, ’cause Fanny tellin’
me nex’ fam’ly have dinnuh-potty make heap o’ fun. Say I done my
’nouncin’ good as kin be, but say what’s use holler’n names jes’ fer
some the neighbors or they own aunts an’ uncles to walk in, when
ev’rybody awready knows ’em? So Fanny pummote me to waituh, an’ I roun’
right in amongs’ big doin’s mos’ ev’y night. Pass ice-cream, lemonade,
lemon-ice, cake, sammitches. ‘Lemme han’ you lil mo’ chicken-salad,
ma’am’--‘’Low me be so kine as to git you f’esh cup coffee, suh’--’s
way ole Genesis talkin’ ev’y even’ ’ese days!”
Jane looked at him thoughtfully. “Do you like it better than cuttin’
grass, Genesis?” she asked.
He paused to consider.
“Yes’m--when ban’ play all lem _tunes_! My goo’ness, do soun’ gran’!”
“You can’t do it to-night, though. Genesis,” said Jane. “You haf to be
quiet on Sunday nights, don’t you?”
“Yes’m. Ain’ got no mo’ kaytun till nex’ Friday even’.”
“Oh, I bet that’s the party for Miss Pratt at Mr. Parcher’s!” cried
Jane. “Didn’t I guess right?”
“Yes’m. I reckon I’m a go’n a see one you’ fam’ly ’at night; see him
dancin’--wait on him at refeshmuns.”
Jane’s expression became even more serious than usual. “Willie? I don’t
know whether he’s goin’, Genesis.”
“Lan’ name!” Genesis exclaimed. “He die ef he don’ git invite to ’at
ball!”
“Oh, he’s invited,” said Jane. “Only I think maybe he won’t go.”
“My goo’ness! Why ain’t he goin’?”
Jane looked at her friend studiously before replying. “Well, it’s a
secret,” she said, finally, “but it’s a very inter’sting one, an’ I’ll
tell you if you never tell.”
“Yes’m; I ain’t tellin’ nobody.”
Jane glanced round, then stepped a little closer and told the secret
with the solemnity it deserved. “Well, when Miss Pratt first came to
visit Miss May Parcher, Willie used to keep papa’s evening clo’es in
his windowseat, an’ mamma wondered what _had_ become of ’em. Then,
after dinner, he’d slip up there an’ put ’em on him, an’ go out through
the kitchen an’ call on Miss Pratt. Then mamma found ’em, and she
thought he oughtn’t to do that, so she didn’ tell him or anything, an’
she didn’t even tell papa, but she had the tailor make ’em ever an’
ever so much bigger, ’cause they were gettin’ too tight for papa. An’,
well, so after that, even if Willie could get ’em out o’ mamma’s clo’es
closet where she keeps ’em now, he’d look so funny in ’em he couldn’t
wear ’em. Well, an’ then he’s never been to see Miss Pratt in the
evening one single time since then because mamma says after he started
to go there in that suit he couldn’t go without it, or maybe Miss Pratt
or the other ones that’s in love of her would think it was pretty
queer, and maybe kind of expeck it was papa’s all the time. Mamma says
she thinks Willie must have worried a good deal over reasons to say
why he’d always go in the daytime after that, an’ never came in the
evening, an’ now they’re goin’ to have this party, an’ she says he’s
been gettin’ paler an’ paler every day since he heard about it. Mamma
says he’s pale _some_, because Miss Pratt’s goin’ away, but she thinks
it’s a good deal more because, well, if he would wear those evening
clo’es just to go callin’, how would it be to go to that party an’ not
have any? That’s what mamma thinks--an’, Genesis, you promised you’d
never tell as long as you lived!”
“Yes’m. I ain’ tellin’,” Genesis chuckled. “I’m a go’n a git me one
nem waituh suits befo’ long, myse’f, so’s I kin quit wearin’ ’at ole
Henry Gimlet suit what b’longs to Fanny, an’ have me a privut suit o’
my own. They’s a secon’ han’ sto’, ovuh on the avynoo, where they got
swaller-tail suits all way f’um sevum dolluhs to nineteen dolluhs an’
ninety-eight cents. I’m a--”
Jane started, interrupting him. “_Sh_,” she whispered, laying a finger
warningly upon her lips. William had entered the yard at the back gate,
and, approaching over the lawn, had arrived at the steps of the porch
before Jane perceived him. She gave him an apprehensive look, but he
passed into the house absent-mindedly, not even glancing at Clematis,
the humble and faithful dog in attendance upon Genesis--and that was
remarkable, because the sight of Clematis was nearly always but too
obviously painful to William. Clematis was so mingled a dog that he
shook one’s faith in any definiteness of design on the part of Nature:
it hurt William to see him about the premises, and William showed his
feelings, for he feared that people might think Clematis belonged to
him or to his family. But to-day he passed without flinching--and Mrs.
Baxter was right: William did look pale.
“I guess he didn’t hear us,” said Jane, when he had disappeared into
the interior. “He acks awful funny!” she added thoughtfully. “First
when he was in love with Miss Pratt, he’d be mad about somep’m’ almost
every minute he was home. Couldn’t anybody say _any_thing to him but
he’d just behave as if it was awful, an’ then if you’d see him out
walkin’ with Miss Pratt, well, he’d look like--like--” Jane paused;
her eye fell upon Clematis and by a happy inspiration she was able to
complete her simile with remarkable accuracy. “He’d look like the way
Clematis looks at people! That’s just _exackly_ the way he’d look,
Genesis, when he was walkin’ with Miss Pratt; an’ then when he was
home he got so quiet he couldn’t answer questions an’ wouldn’t hear
what anybody said to him at table or anywhere, an’ papa’d just almost
bust. Mamma ’n’ papa’d talk an’ talk about it, an’”--she lowered her
voice--“an’ I an’ sometimes he’d sit in there without any light, or
he’d hardly ever get mad any more; he’d just sit in his room, an’
sometimes he’d sit in there without any light, or he’d sit out in the
yard all by himself all evening maybe, an’ th’ other evening after I
was in bed I heard ’em, an’ papa said--well, this is what papa told
mamma.” And again lowering her voice, she proffered the quotation from
her father in a tone somewhat awestruck. “Papa said, by Gosh! if he
ever ’a’ thought a son of his could make such a Word idiot of himself
he almost wished we’d both been girls!”
* * * * *
Having completed this report in a violent whisper Jane nodded
repeatedly, for emphasis, and Genesis shook his head to show that he
was as deeply impressed as she wished him to be. “I guess,” she added,
after a pause, “I guess Willie didn’t hear anything we talked about
him, or clo’es, or anything.”
She was mistaken in part. William had caught no reference to himself,
but he had overheard something, and he was now alone in his room,
thinking about it almost feverishly. “A secon’ han’ sto’, ovuh on the
avynoo, where they got swaller-tail suits all way frum sevem dolluhs to
nineteen dolluhs an’ ninety-eight cents.”
... Civilization is responsible for certain longings in the breast
of man--artificial longings, but sometimes as poignant as hunger and
thirst. Of these the strongest are those of the maid for the bridal
veil, of the lad for long trousers, and of the youth for a tailed
coat of state. To the gratification of this last, few of the more
hushed joys in life are comparable. Indulged youths, too rich, can
know, to the unctuous full, neither the longing nor the gratification;
but one such as William, in “moderate circumstances,” is privileged
to pant for his first evening clothes as the hart panteth after the
water-brook--and sometimes, to pant in vain. Also, this was a crisis in
William’s life: in addition to his yearning for such apparel, he was
racked by a passionate urgency.
As Jane had so precociously understood, unless he should somehow manage
to obtain the proper draperies he could not go to the farewell dance
for Miss Pratt. Other unequipped boys could go in their ordinary “best
clothes,” but William could not; for, alack! he had dressed too well
too soon!
He was in desperate case. The sorrow of the approaching great departure
was but the heavier because it had been so long deferred. To William it
had seemed that this flower-strewn summer could actually end no more
than he could actually die, but Time had begun its awful lecture, and
even Seventeen was listening. Miss Pratt, that magic girl, was going
home.
* * * * *
To the competent twenties, hundreds of miles suggesting no
impossibilities, such departures may be rending but not tragic.
Implacable, the difference to Seventeen! Miss Pratt was going home, and
Seventeen could not follow; it could only mourn upon the lonely shore,
tracing little angelic footprints left in the sand. To Seventeen such a
departure is final; it is a vanishing.
And now it seemed possible that William might be deprived even of the
last romantic consolations: of the “last waltz together,” of the last,
last “listening to music in the moonlight together”; of all those
sacred lasts of the “last evening together.” And this was a thought
that turned him cold on the hot day: it was unbearable.
He had pleaded strongly for a “dress-suit” as a fitting recognition
of his seventeenth birthday anniversary, but he had been denied by
his father with a jocularity more crushing than rigor. Since then--in
particular since the arrival of Miss Pratt--Mr. Baxter’s temper had
been growing steadily more and more even. That is, as affected by
William’s social activities, it was uniformly bad. Nevertheless, after
heavy brooding, William decided to make one final appeal before he
resorted to measures which the necessities of despair had brought to
his mind.
He wished to give himself every chance for a good effect; therefore he
did not act hastily, but went over what he intended to say, rehearsing
it with a few appropriate gestures, and even taking some pleasure in
the pathetic dignity of this performance, as revealed by occasional
glances at the mirror of his dressing-table. But in spite of these
little alleviations, his trouble was great and all too real, for,
unhappily, the previous rehearsal of an emotional scene does not prove
the emotion insincere.
Descending, he found his father and mother still sitting upon the front
porch. Then, standing before them, solemn-eyed, he uttered a preluding
cough, and began:
“Father,” he said, in a loud voice, “I have come to--”
“Dear me!” Mrs. Baxter exclaimed, not perceiving that she was
interrupting an intended oration. “Willie, you _do_ look pale! Sit
down, poor child; you oughtn’t to walk so much in this heat.”
“Father,” William repeated. “Fath--”
“I suppose you got her safely home from church,” Mr. Baxter said. “She
might have been carried off by highwaymen if you three boys hadn’t been
along to take care of her!”
But William persisted heroically. “Father--” he said. “Father, I have
come to--”
“What on earth’s the matter with you?” Mr. Baxter ceased to fan
himself, Mrs. Baxter stopped rocking, and both stared, for it had
dawned upon them that something unusual was beginning to take place.
William backed to the start and tried it again. “Father, I have come
to--” He paused and gulped, evidently expecting to be interrupted,
but both of his parents remained silent, regarding him with puzzled
surprise. “Father,” he began once more, “I have come--I have come
to--to place before you something I think it’s your duty as my father
to undertake, and I have thought over this step before laying it before
you.”
“My soul!” said Mr. Baxter under his breath. “My soul!”
“At my age,” William continued, swallowing, and fixing his earnest
eyes upon the roof of the porch to avoid the disconcerting stare of
his father, “at my age there’s some things that ought to be done and
some things that ought not to be done. If you asked me what I thought
_ought_ to be done, there is only one answer: When anybody as old as
I am has to go out among other young men his own age that already got
one, like anyway half of them _have_, who I go with, and their fathers
have already taken such a step, because they felt it was the only right
thing to do, because at my age and the young men I go with’s age it
_is_ the only right thing to do because that is something nobody could
deny, at my age--” Here William drew a long breath, and, deciding to
abandon that sentence as irrevocably tangled, began another: “I have
thought over this step, because there comes a time to every young man
when they must lay a step before their father before something happens
that they would be sorry for. I have thought this undertaking over, and
I am certain it would be your honest duty--”
“My soul!” gasped Mr. Baxter. “I thought I knew you pretty well, but
you talk like a stranger to me! What _is_ all this? What you _want_?”
“A dress-suit!” said William. He had intended to say a great deal more
before coming to the point, but though through nervousness he had lost
some threads of his rehearsed plea, it seemed to him he was getting
along well, and putting his case with some distinction and power. He
was surprised and hurt, therefore, to hear his father utter a wordless
shout in a tone of wondering derision.
“I have more to say--” William began.
But, disregarding this, Mr. Baxter cut him off. “A dress-suit!” he
cried. “Well, I’m glad you were talking about _something_, because I
honestly thought it must be too much sun!”
At this, the troubled William brought his eyes down from the porch roof
and forgot his rehearsal. He lifted his hand appealingly. “Father,” he
said, “I _got_ to have one!”
“Got to!” Mr. Baxter laughed a laugh that chilled the supplicant
through and through. “At your age I thought I was lucky if I had _any_
suit that was fit to be seen in. You’re too young, Willie. I don’t want
you to get your mind on such stuff, and if I have my way, you won’t
have a dress-suit for four years more, anyhow.”
“Father, I _got_ to have one. I got to have one right away!” The
urgency in William’s voice was almost tearful. “I don’t ask you to have
it made, or to go to expensive tailors, but there’s a plenty of good
ready-made ones that only cost about forty dollars; they’re advertised
in the paper. Father, wouldn’t you spent just forty dollars? I’ll pay
it back when I’m in business. I’ll work--”
Mr. Baxter waved all this aside. “It’s not the money. It’s the
principle that I’m standing for, and I don’t intend--”
“Father, _won’t_ you do it?”
“No, I will not!”
* * * * *
William saw that sentence had been passed and all appeals for a new
trial denied. He choked, and rushed into the house without more ado.
“Poor boy!” his mother said.
“Poor boy nothing!” fumed Mr. Baxter. “He’s almost lost his mind over
that Miss Pratt. Think of his coming out here and starting a regular
debating society declamation before his mother and father! Why, I never
heard anything like it in my life! I don’t like to hurt his feelings,
and I’d give him anything I could afford that would do him any good,
but all he wants it for now is to splurge around in at this party
before that little yellow-haired girl! I guess he can wear the kind of
clothes most of the other boys wear--the kind _I_ wore at parties--and
never thought of wearing anything else. What’s the world getting to
be like? Seventeen years old and throws a fit because he can’t have a
dress-suit!”
Mrs. Baxter looked thoughtful. “But--but suppose he felt he couldn’t go
to the dance unless he wore one, poor boy--”
“All the better,” said Mr. Baxter firmly. “Do him good to keep away and
get his mind on something else.”
“Of course,” she suggested, with some timidity, “forty dollars isn’t a
great deal of money, and a ready-made suit, just to begin with--”
Naturally Mr. Baxter perceived whither she was drifting. “Forty dollars
isn’t a thousand,” he interrupted, “but what you want to throw it away
for? One reason a boy of seventeen oughtn’t to have evening clothes is
the way he behaves with _any_ clothes. Forty dollars! Why, only this
summer he sat down on Jane’s open paint-box, twice in one week!”
“Well--Miss Pratt _is_ going away, and the dance will be her last
night. I’m afraid it would really hurt him to miss it. I remember once,
before we were engaged--that evening before papa took me abroad, and
you--”
“It’s no use, mamma,” he said. “We were both over twenty--why, _I_ was
six years older than Willie, even then. There’s no comparison at all.
I’ll let him order a dress-suit on his twenty-first birthday and not a
minute before. I don’t believe in it, and I intend to see that he gets
all this stuff out of his system. He’s got to learn some hard sense!”
Mrs. Baxter shook her head doubtfully, but she said no more. Perhaps
she regretted a little that she had caused Mr. Baxter’s evening clothes
to be so expansively enlarged--for she looked rather regretful. She
also looked rather incomprehensible, not to say cryptic, during the
long silence which followed, and Mr. Baxter resumed his rocking,
unaware of the fixity of gaze which his wife maintained upon him--a
thing the most loyal will do sometimes. The incomprehensible look
disappeared before long, but the regretful one was renewed in the
mother’s eyes whenever she caught glimpses of her son, that day, and at
the table, where William’s manner was gentle--even toward his heartless
father.
Underneath that gentleness, the harried self of William was no longer
debating a desperate resolve, but had fixed upon it, and on the
following afternoon Jane chanced to be a witness of some resultant
actions. She came to her mother with an account of them.
“Mamma, what you s’pose Willie wants of those two ole market baskets
that were down cellar?”
“Why, Jane?”
“Well, he carried ’em in his room, an’ then he saw me lookin’, an’ he
said ‘G’way from here!’ an’ shut the door. He looks so funny! What’s he
want of those ole baskets, mamma?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he doesn’t even know himself, Jane.”
But William did know, definitely. He had set the baskets upon chairs,
and now, with pale determination, he was proceeding to fill them. When
his task was completed the two baskets contained, between them:
One heavy-weight winter suit of clothes.
One light-weight summer suit of clothes.
Two pairs of white flannel trousers.
Two Madras negligée shirts.
Two flannel shirts.
Two silk shirts.
Seven soft collars.
Three silk neckties.
One crocheted tie.
Eight pairs of socks.
One pair of patent-leather shoes.
One overcoat.
Some underwear.
One two-foot shelf of books, consisting of several sterling works upon
mathematics, in a damaged condition; five of Shakespeare’s plays,
expurgated and edited for schools and colleges, and also damaged; a
work upon political economy and another upon the science of physics;
“Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,” “How to Enter a Drawing-Room and
500 Other Hints,” “Witty Sayings From Here and There,” “Lorna Doone,”
“Quentin Durward,” “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” a very old copy
of “Moths,” and a small Bible.
William spread handkerchiefs upon the two overbulging cargoes, that
their nature might not be disclosed to the curious, and, after
listening a moment at his door, took the baskets, one upon each arm,
then went quickly down the stairs and out of the house, out of the
yard, and into the alley--by which route he had modestly chosen to
travel.
... After an absence of about two hours, he returned empty-handed and
anxious. “Mother, I want to speak to you,” he said, addressing Mrs.
Baxter in a voice which clearly proved the strain of these racking
days. “I want to speak to you about something important.”
“Yes, Willie?”
“Please send Jane away. I can’t talk about important things with a
child in the room.”
Jane naturally wished to stay, since he was going to say something
important. “Mamma, do I _haf_ to go?”
“Just a few minutes, dear.”