THE ABDICATION OF THE BOSS
There is no need to conceal that I was by this time put to it for
matters to think upon not clearly related to myself; in other words for
matters extraneous to my neighbor's troublesome daughter. In sheer
self-defence was I driven to look abroad for interests that would
suffice without disquieting me. I was now compelled to admit that there
was plainly to be observed in Miss Kate Lansdale something more than a
mere winning faith in my powers of self-control. It was difficult at
first to suspect that she actually meant to try me to the breaking
point. The suspicion brought a false note to that harmony of chastened
grief wherein, I had divined, she meant to live out her life. It seemed
too Peavey and perverse a thing that she should, finding our truce
honorably observed by myself, behave toward me as if with a cold design
to bring me down in disgrace--as a proof of her superior powers and my
own wretched weakness. Yet this very thing was I obliged regretfully to
concede of her before many days. And it was behavior that I could
palliate only by reminding myself constantly that she was not only a
woman but the daughter of Miss Caroline, and by that token subject
inevitably to certain infirmities of character. And still did she at
times evince for me that shyness which only enhanced my peril.
I managed to refrain, though in so grievous a plight, from wishing for
another war; though I did concede that if we must ever again be cursed
with war, it might as well come now as later. Regrettable though I must
consider it, I should there find, spite of my disability, some field of
active endeavor to engage my mind.
Lacking war, I sought distraction in a matter close at hand--one which
possessed quite all the vivacity of war without its violence.
Early in the summer Mrs. Aurelia Potts had resumed her activities in
behalf of our broader culture, whereupon our people murmured promptly at
Solon Denney; for him did Little Arcady still hold to account for the
infliction of this relentless evangel.
It was known that something still remained to Mrs. Potts, even after a
year, of the pittance secured from the railway company, so that it was
not necessity which drove her. To a considerable element of the town it
seemed to be mere innate perversity. "It's _in_ her," was an explanation
which Westley Keyts thought all-sufficient, though he added by way, as
it were, of putting this into raised letters for the blind, "she'd have
to raise hell just the same if it had cost that there railroad eight
million 'stead of eight hundred to exterminate Potts!"
For myself, I should have set this thing to different words. I regarded
Mrs. Potts as a zealot whom no advantage of worldly resource could blind
to our shortcomings, nor deter from ministering unto them. Had it been
unnecessary to earn bread for herself and little Roscoe, I am persuaded
that she would still have been unremitting in her efforts to uplift us.
In that event she might, it is true, have read us more papers and sold
us fewer books; but she would have allowed herself as little leisure.
That Little Arcady was unequal to this broader view, however, was to be
inferred from comments made in the hearing of and often, in truth, meant
for the ears of Solon Denney. The burden was shifted to his poor
shoulders with as little concern as if our best citizens had not
coöperated with him in the original move, with grateful applause for its
ingenious and fanciful daring. In ways devoid of his own vaunted
subtlety, it was conveyed to Solon that Little Arcady expected him to do
something. This was after the town had been cleanly canvassed for two
monthly magazines--one of which had a dress-pattern in each number, to
be cut out on the dotted line--and after our heroine had gallantly
returned to the charge with a rather heavy "Handbook of Science for the
Home,"--a book costing two dollars and fifty cents and treating of many
matters, such as, how to conduct electrical experiments in a
drawing-room, how to cleanse linen of ink-stains, how the world was
made, who invented gun-powder, and how to restore the drowned. I recite
these from memory, not having at hand either of my own two copies of
this valuable work. Upon myself Mrs. Potts was never to call in vain,
for to me she was an important card miraculously shuffled into the right
place in the game. It was the custom of Miss Caroline, also, to sign
gladly for whatsoever Mrs. Potts signified would be to her advantage.
She gave the "Handbook of Science" to Clem, who, being strongly moved by
any group of figures over six, rejoiced passionately to read the weight
of the earth in net tons, and to dwell upon those vastly extensive
distances affected by astronomers.
But abroad in the town there was not enough of this complaisance nor of
this passion for mere numerals to prevent worry from creasing the brow
of Solon Denney.
"The good God helped him once, but it looks like he'd have to help
himself now," said Uncle Billy McCormick, the day he refused to
subscribe for an improving book on the ground that the clock-shelf
wouldn't hold another one. And this view of the situation came also to
be the desperate view of Solon himself. That he suffered a black hour
each week when Mrs. Potts read the _Argus_ to him with corrections to
make it square with "One Hundred Common Errors" and with good taste, in
no way lessened the feeling against him. If he sustained an injury
peculiar to his calling, it seemed probable that he would the sooner be
moved to action. Little Arcady did not know what he could do, but it had
faith that he would do something if he were pushed hard enough. So the
good people pushed and trusted and pushed.
To those brutal enough to seek direct speech about it with Solon, he
professed to be awaiting only the right opportunity for a brilliant
stroke, and he counselled patience.
To me alone, I think, did he confide his utter lack of inspiration. And
yet, though he seemed to affect entire candor with me, I was, strangely
enough, puzzled by some reserve that still lurked beneath his manner. I
hoped this meant that he was slowly finding a way too good to be told as
yet, even to his best friend.
"Something must be done, Cal," he said, on one occasion, "but you see,
here's the trouble--she's a woman and I'm a man."
"That's a famous old trouble," I remarked.
"And she's _got_ to live, though Wes' Keyts says he isn't so sure of
that--he says I'm lucky enough to have an earthquake made up especially
for this case--and if she lives, she must have ways and means. And then
I have my own troubles. Say, I never knew I was so careless about my
language until she came along. She says only an iron will can correct
it. Did you ever notice how she says 'i--ron' the way people say it when
they're reading poetry out loud? I'll bet, if he had her help, the
author of 'One Hundred Common Errors' could take an _Argus_ and run his
list up to a hundred and fifty in no time. She keeps finding common
errors there that I'll bet this fellow never heard of. You mustn't say
'by the sweat of the brow,' but 'by the perspiration'--perspiration is
refined and sweat is coarse--and to-day I learned for the first time
that it's wrong to say 'Mrs. Henry Peterby of Plum Creek, _née_ Jennie
McCormick, spent Sunday with her parents of this city.' It looks right
on the face of it, but it seems you mustn't say 'née' for the first
name--only the last; though it means in French that that was her name
before she was married. I tell you, that woman is a stickler. But what
can I do?"
"Well, what _can_ you do? Far be it from me to suggest that something
must be done."
"Do you know, Cal, sometimes I've thought I'd adopt a tone with her?"
"Better be careful," I cautioned. Mrs. Potts was not a person that one
should adopt a tone with except after long and prayerful deliberation.
"Oh, I've considered it long enough--in fact I've considered a lot of
things. That woman has bothered me in more ways than one, I tell you
frankly. She's such a fine woman, splendid-looking, capable, an
intellectual giant--one, I may say, who makes no common errors--and
yet--"
"Ah! and yet--?" There was then in Solon's eyes that curious reserve I
had before noted--a reserve that hinted of some desperate but still
secret design.
"Well, there you are."
"Where?"
"Well--she seems to me to be a born leader of men."
"I see, and you?"
"Oh, nothing--only I'm a man. But something has got to be done. We must
use common sense in these matters."
It was early evening a week later when I again saw Solon; one of those
still, serene evenings of later summer when the light would yet permit
an hour's play at the game. I heard a step, but it was not she I longed,
half-expected, and wholly dreaded to see. Instead came Solon, and by his
restored confidence of bearing I knew at a glance that something had
been done or--since he seemed to be hurried--that he was about to do it.
"It's all over, Cal--it's fixed!"
"Good--how did you fix it?"
"Well--uh--I adopted a tone."
"That was brave, Solon. No other man on God's earth would have dared--"
"A tone, I was about to say--" he broke in a little uncomfortably, I
thought--"which I have long contemplated adopting. If I could tell you
just how that woman has impressed herself upon me, you'd understand what
I mean when I say that she has _powers_. But I suppose you can't
understand it, can you?" His tone, curiously enough, was almost
pleading.
"It isn't necessary that I should. I can at least understand that you
are the Boss of Little Arcady once more."
"Boss of nothing!--that's all over. Cal, I've abdicated--I'm not even
Boss of myself."
"Why, Solon--you can't possibly mean--"
"I do, though! Mrs. Potts is going to marry me and--uh--put an end to
everything!"
With this rather curious finish he held out his hand expectantly.
"Well, you certainly _did_ something, Solon."
"We have to use common sense in these matters," he said with an effort
to control his excitement. But, looking into his eyes, I saw reason to
shake him warmly by the hand. What was my own poor opinion at a crisis
like this? Certainly nothing to be obtruded upon my friend. It was clear
that he had done a thing which he earnestly wanted and had earnestly
dreaded to do--and that the dread was past.
"I'm pretty happy, Cal--that's all. Of course you'll soon know how it is
yourself." He referred here to the well-known fact that I was much in
the company of Miss Lansdale. But this was a thing to be turned.
"Oh, the game is teaching me resignation to a solitary life," I said
with an affectation of disinterest that must have irritated him, for he
asked bluntly:--
"Say, Calvin, how long do you intend to keep up that damned nonsense
when everybody knows--"
This interesting sentence was cut off by Miss Kate Lansdale, who
appeared around the corner and paused politely before us, with a look of
trained and admirable deafness.
"Ah, Miss Lansdale," said Solon, urbanely, "I was just about to speak of
you."
"Dear me!" said the young woman, simply. I thought she was aghast.
"Yes--but it's not worth repeating--or finishing."
Miss Lansdale seemed to be relieved by this assurance.
"And now I must hurry off," added Solon.
"Good evening!" we both said.
It seemed to be of a stuff from which curtains are sometimes made,
white, with little colored figures in it, but the design would have
required at least a column of the most technical description in a
magazine I had subscribed for that summer. There was lace at the throat,
and I should say that the thing had been constructed with the needs of
Miss Lansdale's slender but completed figure solely and clearly in mind.