Then, having gone about six feet farther, she halted, and, preserving a
breathless silence, consoled herself for her banishment by listening to
what was said, hearing it all as satisfactorily as if she had remained
in the room. Quiet, thoughtful children, like Jane, avail themselves of
these little pleasures oftener than is suspected.
“Mother,” said William, with great intensity, “I want to ask you please
to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”
“What for, Willie?”
“Mother, I just ask you to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”
“But what _for_?”
“Mother, I don’t feel I can discuss it any; I simply ask you: Will you
lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”
Mrs. Baxter laughed gently. “I don’t think I could, Willie, but
certainly I should want to know what for.”
“Mother, I am going on eighteen years of age, and when I ask for a
small sum of money, like three dollars and sixty cents, I think I might
be trusted to know how to use it for my own good without having to
answer questions like a ch--”
“Why, Willie!” she exclaimed. “You ought to have plenty of money of
your own.”
“Of course I ought,” he agreed warmly. “If you’d ask father to give me
a regular allow--”
“No, no; I mean you ought to have plenty left out of that old junk and
furniture I let you sell, last month. You had nearly nine dollars!”
“That was five weeks ago,” William explained wearily.
“But you certainly must have some of it left. Why, it was _more_
than nine dollars, I believe! I think it was nearer ten. Surely you
haven’t--”
“Ye Gods!” cried the goaded William. “A person going on eighteen years
old ought to be able to spend nine dollars in five weeks without
everybody’s acting like it was a crime! Mother, I ask you the simple
question: Will you _please_ lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”
“I don’t think I ought to, dear. I’m sure your father wouldn’t wish
me to, unless you’ll tell me what you want it for. In fact, I won’t
consider it at all unless you do tell me.”
“You won’t do it?” he quavered.
She shook her head gently. “You see, dear, I’m afraid the reason you
don’t tell me is because you know that I wouldn’t give it to you if I
knew what you wanted it for.”
And this perfect diagnosis of the case so disheartened him that after a
few monosyllabic efforts to continue the conversation with dignity, he
gave it up, and left in such a preoccupation with despondency that he
passed the surprised Jane, in the hall, without suspecting what she had
been doing.
That evening, after dinner, he made to his father an impassioned appeal
for three dollars and sixty cents, laying such stress of pathos on his
principal argument that if he couldn’t have a dress-suit, at least he
ought to be given three dollars and sixty _cents_ (the emphasis is
William’s), that Mr. Baxter was moved in the direction of consent--but
not far enough. “I’d like to let you have it, Willie,” he said,
excusing himself for refusal, “but your mother felt _she_ oughtn’t
to do it, unless you’d say what you wanted it for, and I’m sure she
wouldn’t like me to do it. I can’t let you have it unless you get her
to say she wants me to.”
Thus advised, the unfortunate made another appeal to his mother the
next day, and having brought about no relaxation of the situation,
again petitioned his father, on the following evening. So it went, the
torn and driven William turning from parent to parent; and surely,
since the world began, the special sum of three dollars and sixty cents
has never been so often mentioned in any one house and in the same
space of time as it was in the house of the Baxters during Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of that oppressive week. But on Friday
William disappeared after breakfast and did not return to lunch.
Mrs. Baxter was troubled. During the afternoon she glanced often
from the open window of the room where she had gone to sew, but the
peaceful neighborhood continued to be peaceful, and no sound of the
harassed footsteps of William echoed from the pavement. However, she
saw Genesis arrive (in his week-day costume) to do some weeding, and
Jane immediately skip forth for mingled purposes of observation and
conversation.
“What _do_ they say?” thought Mrs. Baxter, observing that both Jane and
Genesis were unusually animated. But for once that perplexity was to be
dispersed. After an exciting half-hour Jane came flying to her mother,
breathless.
“Mamma,” she cried, “I know where Willie is! Genesis told me, ’cause he
saw him, an’ he talked to him while he was doin’ it.”
“Doing what? Where?”
“Mamma, listen! What you think Willie’s doin’? I bet you can’t g--”
“Jane!” Mrs. Baxter spoke sharply. “Tell me what Genesis said, at once.”
“Yes’m. Willie’s over in a lumber-yard that Genesis comes by on his way
from over on the avynoo where all the colored people live--an’ he’s
countin’ knot-holes in shingles.”
“He is _what_?”
“Yes’m. Genesis knows all about it, because he was thinkin’ of doin’
it himself, only he says it would be too slow. This is the way it is,
mamma--listen, mamma, because this is just exactly the way it is.
Well, this lumber-yard man got into some sort of a fuss because he
bought millions an’ millions of shingles, mamma, that had too many
knots in, an’ the man don’t want to pay for ’em, or else the store
where he bought ’em won’t take ’em back, an’ they got to prove how many
shingles are bad shingles, or somep’m, and anyway, mamma, that’s what
Willie’s doin’. Every time he comes to a bad shingle, mamma, he puts it
somewheres else, or somep’m like that, mamma, an’ every time he’s put a
thousand bad shingles in this other place, they give him six cents. He
gets the six cents to keep, mamma--an’ that’s what he’s been doin’ all
day!”
“Good gracious!”
“Oh, but that’s nothing, mamma--just you wait till you hear the rest.
_That_ part of it isn’t anything a _tall_, mamma! You wouldn’t hardly
notice that part of it, if you knew the other part of it, mamma. Why,
that isn’t _anything_!” Jane made demonstrations of scorn for the
insignificant information already imparted.
“Jane!”
“Yes’m?”
“I want to know everything Genesis told you,” said her mother, “and I
want you to tell it as quickly as you can.”
“Well, I _am_ tellin’ it, mamma!” Jane protested. “I’m just
_beginning_ to tell it. I can’t tell it unless there’s a beginning, can
I? How could there be _anything_ unless you had to begin it, mamma?”
“Try your best to go on, Jane!”
“Yes’m. Well, Genesis says--Mamma!” Jane interrupted herself with a
little outcry. “Oh! I bet _that’s_ what he had those two market baskets
for! Yes, sir! That’s just what he did! An’ then he needed the rest
o’ the money and you an’ papa wouldn’t give him any, and so he began
countin’ shingles to-day ’cause to-night’s the night of the party an’
he just _hass_ to have it!”
Mrs. Baxter, who had risen to her feet, recalled the episode of the
baskets and sank into a chair. “How did Genesis know Willie wanted
forty dollars, and if Willie’s pawned something how did Genesis know
_that_? Did Willie tell Gen--”
“Oh, no, mamma, Willie didn’t want forty dollars--only fourteen!”
“But he couldn’t get even the cheapest ready-made dress-suit for
fourteen dollars.”
“Mamma, you’re gettin’ it all mixed up!” Jane cried. “Listen, mamma!
Genesis knows all about a second-hand store over on the avynoo; an’
it keeps ’most everything, an’ Genesis says it’s the nicest store! It
keeps waiter suits all the way up to nineteen dollars and ninety-nine
cents. Well, an’ Genesis wants to get one of those suits, so he goes in
there all the time an’ talks to the man an’ bargains an’ bargains with
him, ’cause Genesis says this man is the bargainest man in the wide
worl’, mamma! That’s what Genesis says. Well, an’ so this man’s name
is One-eye Beljus, mamma. That’s his name, an’ Genesis says so. Well,
an’ so this man that Genesis told me about that keeps the store--I mean
One-eye Beljus, mamma--well, One-eye Beljus had Willie’s name written
down in a book, an’ he knew Genesis worked for fam’lies that have boys
like Willie in ’em, an’ this morning One-eye Beljus showed Genesis
Willie’s name written down in his book, an’ One-eye Beljus asked
Genesis if he knew anybody by that name an’ all about him. Well, an’
so at first Genesis pretended he was tryin’ to remember, because he
wanted to find out what Willie went there for. Genesis didn’t tell any
stories, mamma; he just pretended he couldn’t remember, an’ so, well,
One-eye Beljus kept talkin’ an’ pretty soon Genesis found out all about
it. One-eye Beljus said Willie came in there and tried on the coat of
one of those waiter suits--”
“Oh, no!” gasped Mrs. Baxter.
“Yes’m, an’ One-eye Beljus said it was the only one that would fit
Willie, an’ One-eye Beljus told Willie that suit was worth fourteen
dollars, an’ Willie said he didn’t have any money, but he’d like to
trade something else for it. Well, an’ so One-eye Beljus said this was
an awful fine suit an’ the only one he had that had b’longed to a white
gentleman. Well, an’ so they bargained, an’ bargained, an’ bargained,
an’ _bargained_! An’ then, well, an’ so at last Willie said he’d go
an’ get everything that b’longed to him, an’ One-eye Beljus could pick
out enough to make fourteen dollars’ worth, an’ then Willie could have
the suit. Well, an’ so Willie came home an’ put everything he had that
b’longed to him into those two baskets, mamma--that’s just what he
did, ’cause Genesis says he told One-eye Beljus it was everything that
b’longed to him, an’ that would take two baskets, mamma. Well then,
an’ so he told One-eye Beljus to pick out fourteen dollars’ worth, an’
One-eye Beljus ast Willie if he didn’t have a watch. Well, Willie took
out his watch, an’ One-eye Beljus said it was an awful bad watch but
he would put it in for a dollar; an’ he said, ‘I’ll put your necktie
pin in for forty cents more,’ so Willie took it out of his necktie; an’
then One-eye Beljus said it would take all the things in the baskets to
make I forget how much, mamma, and the watch would be a dollar more,
an’ the pin forty cents, an’ that would leave just three dollars and
sixty cents more for Willie to pay before he could get the suit.”
Mrs. Baxter’s face had become suffused with high color, but she wished
to know all that Genesis had said, and, mastering her feelings with an
effort, she told Jane to proceed--a command obeyed after Jane had taken
several long breaths.
“Well, an’ so the worst part of it is, Genesis says, it’s because that
suit is haunted.”
“What!”
“Yes’m,” said Jane solemnly; “Genesis says it’s haunted. Genesis says
everybody over on the avynoo knows all about that suit, an’ he says
that’s why One-eye Beljus never could sell it before. Genesis says
One-eye Beljus tried to sell it to a colored man for three dollars,
but the man said he wouldn’t put it on for three hunderd dollars, an’
Genesis says he wouldn’t either, because it belonged to a Dago waiter
that--that--” Jane’s voice sank to a whisper of unctuous horror: she
was having a wonderful time! “Mamma, this Dago waiter, he lived over
on the avynoo, an’ he took a case-knife he’d sharpened--_an’ he cut a
lady’s head off with it_!”
Mrs. Baxter screamed faintly.
“An’ he got hung, mamma! If you don’t believe it you can ask One-eye
Beljus--I guess _he_ knows! An’ you can ask--”
“Hush!”
“An’ he sold this suit that Willie wants to One-eye Beljus when he was
in jail, mamma. He sold it to him before he got hung, mamma.”
“Hush, Jane!”
But Jane couldn’t hush now. “An’ he had that suit on when he cut the
lady’s head off, mamma, an’ that’s why it’s haunted. They cleaned it
all up excep’ a few little spots of bl--”
“_Jane!_” shouted her mother. “You must not talk about such things, and
Genesis mustn’t tell you stories of that sort!”
“Well, how could he help it, if he told me about Willie?” Jane urged
reasonably.
“Never mind! Did that crazy ch-- Did Willie _leave_ the baskets in that
dreadful place?”
“Yes’m--an’ his watch an’ pin,” Jane informed her impressively. “An’
One-eye Beljus wanted to know if Genesis knew Willie, because One-eye
Beljus wanted to know if Genesis thought Willie could get the three
dollars an’ sixty cents, an’ One-eye Beljus wanted to know if Genesis
thought he could get anything more out of him besides that. He told
Genesis he hadn’t told Willie he _could_ have the suit, after all; he
just told him he _thought_ he could, but he wouldn’t say for certain
till he brought him the three dollars an’ sixty cents. So Willie left
all his things there, an’ his watch an’--”
“That will do!” Mrs. Baxter’s voice was sharper than it had ever been
in Jane’s recollection. “I don’t need to hear any more--and I don’t
_want_ to hear any more!”
Jane was justly aggrieved. “But mamma, it isn’t _my_ fault!”
Mrs. Baxter’s lips parted to speak, but she checked herself. “Fault?”
she said gravely. “I wonder whose fault it really is!”
And with that she went hurriedly into William’s room, and made a brief
inspection of his clothes-closet and dressing-table. Then, as Jane
watched her in awed silence, she strode to the window and called loudly:
“Genesis!”
“Yes’m?” came the voice from below.
“Go to that lumber-yard where Mr. William is at work and bring him here
to me at once. If he declines to come, tell him--” Her voice broke
oddly; she choked, but Jane could not decide with what emotion. “Tell
him--tell him I ordered you to use force if necessary! Hurry!”
“_Yes’m!_”
Jane ran to the window in time to see Genesis departing seriously
through the back gate.
“Mamma--”
“Don’t talk to me now, Jane,” Mrs. Baxter said crisply. “I want you to
go down in the yard, and when Willie comes tell him I’m waiting for him
here in his own room. And don’t come with him, Jane. Run!”
“Yes, mamma.” Jane was pleased with this appointment: she anxiously
desired to be the first to see how Willie “looked.”
... He looked flurried and flustered and breathless, and there were
blisters upon the reddened palms of his hands. “What on earth’s the
matter, mother?” he asked, as he stood panting before her. “Genesis
said something was wrong, and he said you told him to hit me if I
wouldn’t come.”
“Oh, _no_!” she cried. “I only meant I thought perhaps you wouldn’t
obey any ordinary message--”
“Well, well, it doesn’t matter, but please hurry and say what you want
to because I got to get back and--”
“No,” Mrs. Baxter said quietly. “You’re not going back to count any
more shingles, Willie. How much have you earned?”
He swallowed, but spoke bravely. “Thirty-six cents. But I’ve been
getting lots faster the last two hours and there’s a good deal of time
before six o’clock. Mother--”
“No,” she said. “You’re going over to that horrible place where you’ve
left your clothes and your watch and all those other things in the two
baskets, and you’re going to bring them home at once.”
“Mother!” he cried aghast. “Who told you?”
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t want your father to find out, do you?
Then get those things back here as quickly as you can. They’ll have to
be fumigated after being in that den.”
“They’ve never been out of the baskets,” he protested hotly, “except
just to be looked at. They’re _my_ things, mother, and I had a right
to do what I needed to with ’em, didn’t I?” His utterance became
difficult. “You and father just _can’t_ understand--and you won’t do
anything to help me--”
“Willie, you can go to the party,” she said gently. “You didn’t need
those frightful clothes at all.”
“I do!” he cried. “I _got_ to have ’em! I _can’t_ go in my day clo’es!
There’s a reason you wouldn’t understand why I can’t. I just _can’t_!”
“Yes,” she said, “you can go to the party.”
“I can’t either! Not unless you give me three dollars and twenty-four
cents, or unless I can get back to the lumber-yard and earn the rest
before--”
“No!” And the warm color that had rushed over Mrs. Baxter during Jane’s
sensational recital returned with a vengeance. Her eyes flashed. “If
you’d rather I sent a policeman for those baskets, I’ll send one. I
should prefer to do it--much! And to have that rascal arrested. If you
don’t want me to send a policeman you can go for them yourself, but
you must start within ten minutes, because if you don’t I’ll telephone
headquarters. Ten minutes, Willie, and I mean it!”
He cried out, protesting. She would make him a thing of scorn forever
and soil his honor, if she sent a policeman. Mr. Beljus was a fair
and honest tradesman, he explained passionately, and had not made the
approaches in this matter. Also, the garments in question, though not
entirely new, nor of the highest mode, were of good material and in
splendid condition. Unmistakably they were evening clothes, and such a
bargain at fourteen dollars that William would guarantee to sell them
for twenty after he had worn them this one evening. Mr. Beljus himself
had said that he would not even think of letting them go at fourteen
to anybody else, and as for the two poor baskets of worn and useless
articles offered in exchange, and a bent scarfpin and a worn-out old
silver watch that had belonged to great-uncle Ben--why, the ten dollars
and forty cents allowed upon them was beyond all ordinary liberality;
it was almost charity. There was only one place in town where evening
clothes were rented, and the suspicious persons in charge had insisted
that William obtain from his father a guarantee to insure the return
of the garments in perfect condition. So that was hopeless. And wasn’t
it better, also, to wear clothes which had known only one previous
occupant (as was the case with Mr. Beljus’ offering) than to hire
what chance hundreds had hired? Finally, there was only one thing to
be considered and this was the fact that William _had_ to have those
clothes!
“Six minutes,” said Mrs. Baxter, glancing implacably at her watch.
“When it’s ten I’ll telephone.”
And the end of it was, of course, victory for the woman--victory both
moral and physical. Three-quarters of an hour later she was unburdening
the contents of the two baskets and putting the things back in place,
illuminating these actions with an expression of strong distaste--in
spite of broken assurances that Mr. Beljus had not more than touched
any of the articles offered to him for valuation.
... At dinner, which was unusually early that evening, Mrs. Baxter did
not often glance toward her son; she kept her eyes from that white face
and spent most of her time in urging upon Mr. Baxter that he should
be prompt in dressing for a card-club meeting which he and she were
to attend that evening. These admonitions of hers were continued so
pressingly that Mr. Baxter, after protesting that there was no use in
being a whole hour too early, groaningly went to dress without even
reading his paper.
William had retired to his own room, where he lay upon his bed in the
darkness. He heard the evening noises of the house faintly through
the closed door: voices and the clatter of metal and china from the
faraway kitchen, Jane’s laugh in the hall, the opening and closing of
the doors. Then his father seemed to be in distress about something:
William heard him complaining to Mrs. Baxter; and though the words were
indistinct, the tone was vigorously plaintive. Mrs. Baxter laughed
and appeared to make light of his troubles, whatever they were--and
presently their footsteps were audible from the stairway; the front
door closed emphatically, and they were gone.
Everything was quiet now. The open window showed as a greenish oblong
set in black, and William knew that in a little while--half an hour,
perhaps--there would come through the stillness of that window the
distant sound of violins. That was a moment he dreaded with a dread
that ached. And as he lay on his dreary bed, he thought of brightly
lighted rooms where other boys were dressing eagerly, faces and hair
shining, hearts beating high--boys who would possess this last evening,
and the “last waltz together,” the last smile and the last sigh.
It did not once enter his mind that he could go to the dance in his
“best suit,” or that possibly the other young people at the party would
be too busy with their own affairs to notice particularly what he wore.
It was the unquestionable and granite fact, to his mind, that the whole
derisive World would know the truth about his earlier appearances in
his father’s clothes. And that was a form of ruin not to be faced.
In the protective darkness and seclusion of William’s bedroom, it is
possible that smarting eyes relieved themselves by blinking rather
energetically; it is even possible that there was a minute damp spot
upon the pillow. Seventeen cannot always manage the little boy yet
alive under all the coverings.
There came a tapping upon the door and a soft voice.
“Will-ee?”
With a sharp exclamation William swung his legs over the edge of
the bed and sat up. Of all things he desired not, he desired no
conversation with, or on the part of, Jane. But he had forgotten to
lock his door--the handle turned, and a dim little figure marched in.
“Willie, Adelia’s goin’ to put me to bed.”
“You g’way from here,” he said huskily. “I haven’t got time to talk to
you. I’m busy.”
“Well, you can wait a minute, can’t you?” she asked reasonably. “I haf
to tell you a joke on mamma.”
“I don’t want to hear any jokes!”
“Well, I _haf_ to tell you this one ’cause she told me to! Oh!” Jane
clapped her hand over her mouth and jumped up and down, offering a
fantastic silhouette against the light of the open door. “Oh, oh, _oh_!”
“What’s matter?”
“She said I mustn’t, _mustn’t_ tell that she told me to tell! My
goodness! I forgot that! Mamma took me off alone right after dinner,
an’ she told me to tell you this joke on her as soon as she an’ papa
had left the house, but she said, ‘Above all _things_,’ she said,
‘_don’t_ let Willie know _I_ said to tell him.’ That’s just what she
said, an’ here that’s the very first thing I had to go an’ do!”
“Well, what of it?”
Jane quieted down. The pangs of her remorse were lost in her love of
sensationalism, and her voice sank to the thrilling whisper which it
was one of her greatest pleasures to use. “Did you hear what a fuss
papa was makin’ when he was dressin’ for the card-party?”
“I don’t care if--”
“He had to go in his reg’lar clo’es!” whispered Jane triumphantly.
“An’ this is the joke on mamma: you know that tailor that let papa’s
dress-suit way, way out; well, mamma thinks that tailor must think
she’s crazy, or somep’m, ’cause she took papa’s dress-suit to him last
Monday to get it pressed for this card-party, an’ she guesses he must
of understood her to tell him to do lots besides just pressin’ it.
Anyway, he went an’ altered it, an’ he took it way, way in again; an’
this afternoon when it came back it was even tighter’n what it was in
the first place, an’ papa couldn’t _begin_ to get into it! Well, an’
so it’s all pressed an’ everything, an’ she stopped on the way out,
an’ whispered to me that sh’d got so upset over the joke on her that
she couldn’t remember where she put it when she took it out o’ papa’s
room after he gave up tryin’ to get inside of it. An’ that,” cried
Jane--“that’s the funniest thing of all! Why, it’s layin’ right on her
bed this very minute!”
In one bound William leaped through the open door. Two seconds sufficed
for his passage through the hall to his mother’s bedroom--and there,
neatly spread upon the lace coverlet and brighter than coronation
robes, fairer than Joseph’s sacred coat It lay!
_The People’s Home Journal_
THE BELL OF SAINT GREGOIRE
BY
AGNES ROSS WHITE
THE BELL OF SAINT GREGOIRE[9]
By AGNES ROSS WHITE
Not everywhere does the Virgin reach down to help those who pray to her
as she does at St. Gregoire, but not everywhere do people pray with
such simple faith, such surety, as do the _habitants_ in this little
parish up among the Laurentides.
For there was the never-to-be-forgotten time, when Our Lady came to
help Diâne Doré, the year the bell was hung in the old church, more
than a hundred years ago.