a man’s strident, good-humored voice put the above question concerning
tomatoes.
But somebody had heard.
A woman had been sitting in the kitchen with a pan of seek-no-further
apples in her lap. She was paring and quartering these and then stabbing
the quarters through and stringing them on yards of white twine,
preparatory to festooning them on the clothes-horse which stood in the
yard. This horse was already decorated profusely in this way. A cloud of
wasps had flown from the drying fruit as the man walked up the path. He
swung off his hat and waved the insects away.
“I say, have ye got hungry agin for termarters?” he repeated.
Then he rattled the screen; but it was hooked on the inside.
He turned and surveyed the three windows that were visible in the bit of
a house.
“They wouldn’t both be gone, ‘n’ left them apples out,” he said to
himself. “I’m ‘bout sure Ann’s to home; ‘n’ she’s the one I want to
see.”
A woman in the bed-room which opened from the kitchen was hurriedly
smoothing her hair and peering into the glass. She was speaking aloud
with the air of one who constantly talks to herself.
“Jest as sure’s I don’t comb my hair the first thing, somebody comes.”
She gave a last pat and went to the door. There was a faint smirk on her
lips and a flush on her face.
Her tall figure was swayed by a slight, eager tremor as she saw who was
standing there. She exclaimed:--
“Goodness me! ‘T ain’t you, Mr. Baker, is it? Won’t ye walk right in?
But I don’t want no termarters; they always go aginst me. Aunt Mandany
ain’t to home.”
“Oh, ain’t she?” was the brisk response. “Then I guess I will come in.”
The speaker pushed open the now unfastened door and entered. He set his
basket of tomatoes with a thump on the rug, and wiped his broad, red
face.
“Fact is,” he said with a grin, “I knew she was gone. I seen her goin’
crosst the pastur’. That’s why I come now. I ain’t got no longin’ to
see Aunt Mandany--no, sir-ee, not a grain of longin’ to see her. But I
thought ‘t would be agreeable to me to clap my eyes on to you.”
The woman simpered, made an inarticulate sound, and hurriedly resumed
her seat and her apple-cutting.
“Won’t you se’ down, Mr. Baker?” she asked.
Her fingers trembled as she took the darning-needle and jabbed it
through an apple quarter. The needle went into her flesh also. She gave
a little cry and thrust her finger into her mouth. Her large, pale eyes
turned wistfully towards her companion. The faded, already elderly mouth
quivered.
“I’m jest as scar’t ‘s I c’n be if I see blood,” she whispered.
Mr. Baker’s heavy under lip twitched; his face softened. But he spoke
roughly.
“You needn’t mind that bit er blood,” he said, “that won’t hurt nothin’.
I don’t care if I do se’ down. I ain’t drove any this mornin’. I c’n
jest as well as not take hold ‘n’ help ye. I s’pose Mandany left a
thunderin’ lot for ye to do while she’s gone?”
“Two bushels,” was the answer.
“The old cat! That’s too much. But ‘t won’t be for both of us, will it,
Ann?”
The woman said, “No.”
She looked for an instant intently at the man who had drawn his chair
directly opposite her. He was already paring an apple.
“I d’ know what to make of it,” she said, still in a whisper.
“To make of what?” briskly.
“Why, when folks are so good to me ‘s you be.”
“Oh, sho’, now! Everybody ain’t like your Aunt Mandany.”
“‘Sh! Don’t speak so loud! Mebby she’ll be comin’ back.”
“No, she won’t. ‘N’ no matter if she is.”
The loud, confident tone rang cheerily in the room.
During the silence that followed Mr. Baker watched Ann’s deft fingers.
“Everybody says you’re real capable,” he remarked.
A joyous red covered Ann’s face.
“I jest about do all the work here,” she said.
She looked at the man again.
There was something curiously sweet in the simple face. The patient
line at each side of the close, pale mouth had a strange effect upon Mr.
Baker.
He had been known to say violently in conversation at the store that he
“never seen Ann Tracy ‘thout wantin’ to thrash her Aunt Mandany.”
“What in time be you dryin’ seek-no-further for?” he now exclaimed with
some fierceness. “They’re the flattest kind of apples I know of.”
“That’s what Aunt says,” was the reply; “she says they’re most as flat’s
as I be, ‘n’ that’s flat ‘nough.”
These words were pronounced as if the speaker were merely stating a
well-known fact.
“Then what does she do um for?” persisted Mr. Baker.
“She says they’re good ‘nough to swop for groceries in the spring.”
Mr. Baker made a deep gash in an apple, and held his tongue.
Ann continued her work, but she took a good deal of seek-no-further with
the skin in a way that would have shocked Aunt Mandany.
Suddenly she raised her eyes to the sturdy face opposite her and said:--
“I guess your wife had a real good time, didn’t she, Mr. Baker, when she
was livin’?”
Mr. Baker dropped his knife. He glanced up and met the wistful gaze upon
him.
Something that he had thought long dead stirred in his consciousness.
“I hope so,” he said gently. “I do declare I tried to make her have a
good time.”
“How long’s she be’n dead?”
“‘Most ten year. We was livin’ down to Norris Corners then.”
The man picked up his knife and absently tried the edge of it on the
ball of his thumb.
“I s’pose,” said Ann, “that folks are sorry when their wives die.”
Mr. Baker gave a short laugh.
“Wall, that depends.”
“Oh, does it? I thought folks had to love their wives, ‘n’ be sorry when
they died.”
Here Mr. Baker laughed again. He made no other answer for several
minutes. At last he said:
“I was sorry enough when my wife died.”
A great pile of quartered apples was heaped up in the wooden bowl before
either spoke again.
Then Ann exclaimed with a piteous intensity:
“Oh, I’m awful tired of bein’ Aunt Mandany’s fool!”
Mr. Baker stamped his foot involuntarily.
“How jew know they call you that?” he cried in a great voice.
“I heard Jane Littlefield tell Mis’ Monk she hoped nobody’d ask
Mandany’s fool to the sociable. And Mr. Fletcher’s boy told me that’s
what folks called me.”
“Damn Jane Littlefield! Damn that little devil of a boy!”
These dreadful words burst out furiously.
Perhaps Ann did not look as shocked as she ought.
In a moment she smiled her immature, simple smile that had a touching
appeal in it.
“‘T ain’t no use denyin’ it,” she said; “I ain’t jes’ like other folks,
‘n’ that’s a fact. I can’t think stiddy more ‘n a minute. Things all run
together, somehow. ‘N’ the back er my head’s odd’s it can be.”
“Pooh! What of it? There can’t any of us think stiddy; ‘n’ if we could
what would it amount to, I should like to know? It would n’t amount to a
row of pins.”
Ann dropped her work and clasped her hands. Mr. Baker saw that her
hands were hard, and stained almost black on fingers and thumbs by much
cutting of apples.
“Ye see,” she said, in a tremulous voice, “sometimes I think if mother
had lived she’d er treated me so ‘t I could think stiddier. I s’pose
mother’d er loved me. They say mothers do. But Aunt Mandany told me
mother died the year I got my fall from the cherry-tree. I was eight
then. I don’t remember nothin’ ‘bout it, nor ‘bout anything much. Mr.
Baker, do you remember your mother?”
Mr. Baker said “Yes,” abruptly. Something made it impossible for him to
say more.
“I d’ know how ‘tis,” went on the thin, minor voice, “but it always
did seem to me ‘s though if I could remember my mother I could think
stiddier, somehow. Do you think I could?”
Mr. Baker started to his feet.
“I’ll be dumbed ‘f I c’n stan’ it,” he shouted. “No, nor I won’t stan’
it, nuther!”
He walked noisily across the room.
He came back and stood in front of Ann, who had patiently resumed work.
“Come,” he said, “I think a lot of ye. Le’s git married.”
Ann looked up. She dropped her knife.
“Then I should live with you?” she asked.
“Of course.”
She laughed.
There was so much of confident happiness in that laugh that the man’s
heart glowed youthfully.
“I shall be real glad to marry you, Mr. Baker,” she said. Then, with
pride, “‘N’ I c’n cook, ‘n’ I know first rate how to do housework.”
She rose to her feet; her eyes shone.
Mr. Baker put his arm about her.
“Le’s go right along now,” he said, more quickly than he had yet spoken.
“We’ll call to the minister’s ‘n’ engage him. You c’n stop there. We’ll
be married to-day.”
“Can’t ye wait till I c’n put on my bunnit ‘n’ shawl?” Ann asked.
She left the room. In a few moments she returned dressed for going. She
had a sheet of note-paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen in her hands.
“I c’n write,” she said confidently, “‘n’ I call it fairer to leave word
for Aunt Mandany.”
“All right,” was the response; “go ahead.”
Mr. Baker said afterward that he never got much more nervous in his life
than while Ann was writing that note. What if Mandany should appear! He
wasn’t going to back out, but he didn’t want to see that woman.
The ink was thick, the pen was like a pin, and Ann was a good while
making each letter, but the task was at last accomplished. She held out
the sheet to her companion.
“Ain’t that right?” she asked.
Mr. Baker drew his face down solemnly as he read:--
Dere Aunt Mandane:--
I’m so dretfull Tired of beeing youre fool that ime going
too be Mr. Baker’s. He askt me.
Ann.
“That’s jest the thing,” he said explosively. “Now, come on.”
As they walked along in the hot fall sunshine Mr. Baker said
earnestly:--
“I’m certain sure we sh’ll be ever so much happier.”
“So ‘m I,” Ann replied, with cheerful confidence.
They were on a lonely road, and they walked hand in hand.
“I’m goin’ to be good to ye,” said the man, with still more earnestness.
Then, in a challenging tone, as if addressing the world at large, “I
guess ‘t ain’t nobody’s business but our’n.”
Ann looked at him and smiled trustfully.
After a while he began to laugh.
“I’m thinkin’ of your Aunt Mandany when she reads that letter,” he
explained.
THE WAY TO CONSTANTINOPLE
By Clinton Ross
MRS. DENBY poured the tea.
“Now, speaking of Constantinople.”
Mrs. Denby blushed. I envied Denby.
“Ah, yes,” said I, “I have read Gautier, and that is a very good
monograph of Marion Crawford’s. I was there once myself.”
“Were you?” said Mrs. Denby, demurely. “Do you take sugar?”
“Oh, tell me!” I began, for I saw I was expected to show some interest.
“Don’t, Dick,” began Mrs. Denby.
“Oh, it’s only Tom,” said Denby, fondly; but not half so fondly as he
had before he had found her, and persuaded her, and--I always have had
such bad luck with the woman whom it’s worth while trying to marry!
“You see,--it’s a silly story. Dick’s usually are,” began Mrs. Denby.
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” said Denby. “Now, you know--”
“Oh, if you must,” said Mrs. Denby, despairfully.
“Paris was a glare of splendor that February,--after the North
Atlantic,” Denby went on. “Did you ever leave New York of a dismal day
of winter fog and a week after find yourself in Havre? The boulevards
are gay, the shops resplendent. Paris is a different place from Paris
in July,--when hordes of our countrymen swoop down on it like the Huns.
It’s like the rural visitor doing Fifth Avenue in August, and wondering
why New York is so much talked about. But Paris in February is the Paris
one dreams of when the word is pronounced, with all its suggestiveness
of the world’s gayety. Yet, it was cold that February,--as bitter as in
New York; and after coming back one night to my lodging on the Avenue
Carnot, where the cab was unable to make its way because of the frozen
sleet on the smooth paving of the hill the Avenue des Champs Elysées
climbs,--that night I concluded I had not intended exchanging New
York for wintry unpleasantness, and decided to go to Constantinople.
Constantinople, where I had never been, seemed so far away, and I did
not know that it, too, could be bleakly dismal in the spring. The next
morning I booked on the Orient Express. That evening I was snugly put
away in my compartment, and the morning after was looking on a Bavarian
landscape.”
“You always were impulsive,” Mrs. Denby interrupted.
“Yes; nothing proves that more than my conduct the next morning at
breakfast in the dining-car. I appeared late. The place was crowded. A
very pretty girl--”
“Did you really think so then?” said Mrs. Denby.
“Oh, I did, or else I shouldn’t have taken the seat opposite beside a
little chap who was ogling and embarrassing her dreadfully.”
“Such a man’s horrid,” commented Mrs. Denby.
“I saw at once he was one of those little Parisians, whose kind I know
well, who in some way lose their appropriateness when transplanted. For
I knew at once they were not acquaintances. The girl appeared alone,
English or American--I could not be certain. Now, I was sure the man
was objectionable,--not quite a gentleman,--or, if he had been, he had
distorted the quality.”
“Now you need n’t explain,” said Mrs. Denby. “My honest opinion is that
you took the seat for exactly the same reason as he, because----”
“Because the girl was pretty?” said Denby.
“I didn’t say she was,” Mrs. Denby hastened to add.
“‘I beg pardon, Monsieur,’ said I to the man, when he glared. Presently
the Swiss brought the young lady’s bill, when a strange agitation
appeared in my vis-à-vis. I saw and felt for her. She had no money. She
probably had her ticket, but had lost her purse. She did not attempt to
go back to the Wagon Lit.
“‘I am going to Constantinople,’ she said.
“‘I beg pardon, Madame,’ began the Swiss.
“‘Cannot the bill--
“‘I am sorry, Mademoiselle,’ said the Swiss, and he looked desolated,
with a contrary gleam in his eye.
“Here the man by my side dropped from the category of the gentleman to
that of the cad.
“‘If Mademoiselle will allow me,’ he began eagerly.
“I leaned under the table, pretending to pick up a purse, which I really
took from my pocket.
“‘I think this is your purse,’ I said in English.
“For an instant she scanned me. The Frenchman looked daggers. She was
blushing.
“‘Thank you,’ said she, and I knew she was an American; ‘how stupid of
me to have dropped it.’
“And from my purse she paid the bill, nodded to me, ignoring the
Frenchman, and without further word left the buffet.
“The particular French cad evidently wanted to pick a quarrel with me,
and for a moment I was debating with myself whether I might not have
been an ass. A fool’s money goes the way of his scanty wit. The girl
might appear pretty, innocent, attractive--and yet--I swallowed my
coffee, and returned to my compartment, which I had to myself. The door
was open. Presently I saw the young woman of the breakfast-table
walking up and down the aisle. I was determined I should not notice her.
Suddenly I heard her voice at the door.
“‘Sir, what can you think of me? But I couldn’t help it, really,--I
have lost my purse. Here is yours; I will return the six francs at
Constantinople.’
“I saw a tear; and I was sure my knowledge of femininity----”
“Conceited,” said Mrs. Denby.
“Could not be at fault,” Denby continued. “I bowed.
“‘I’m glad to be able to make the loan--’ I began.
“‘It’s good of you,’ said she.
“‘But if you have lost all your money, I don’t see--’
“‘What?’
“‘How can you avoid borrowing more?’
“‘That man at the table made me feel so detestably,’ she began.
“‘Oh, you must n’t mind!’
“‘And you really are so nice--What do you know about me?’
“‘Oh, I can tell.’
“‘I think you generally can,’ said she.
“‘Isn’t that interesting?’ said I, pointing out of the window at some
peasants in the field.
“‘Ah, yes!’ said she.
“‘May I sit down?’ said I.
“We had reached her seat.
“‘Why, certainly, I shall be glad to have you.’
“‘How does it happen--’ I began after a moment.
“‘Oh, here’s your purse,’ she interrupted.
“‘Now, really, please. It won’t inconvenience me in the least. There are
only five louis there, and I have my portemonnaie besides, and--’
“‘And?’
“‘I believe I said I should be delighted.’
“’ Oh, you did, but you began a--’
“‘What?’ said I, feeling uncomfortable.
“‘A question. I know what it was.’
“‘Well, if you do--’
“‘I’m from Illinois. We don’t regard chaperones as so necessary;
besides--’
“‘Besides?’ I could n’t resist saying.
“‘I believe women should take care of themselves.’ “‘But they
can’t--always.’
“‘You mean--’ she began rather indignantly.
“‘Well--well--they sometimes have to borrow, you know.’
“‘That’s--that’s mean of you.’
“‘Oh, I--I beg pardon.’
“‘You needn’t. I wish I could return your six francs. I am going to
Constantinople to meet my father, who is up from the east. I went all
alone--because--there was nobody.’
“‘I’m sorry,’ said I. ‘Now don’t mind me, please.’
“She looked at me then.
“‘I suppose I shall have to tolerate you. You are the only American on
this train.’
“‘I consider myself your guardian,--with letters testamentary.’
“‘I am forced to it,’ said she, but smiling.”
“Now, she did n’t smile,” said Mrs. Denby.
“‘Oh,’ said I, ‘this is deliciously lucky. I thought I should have this
ride alone.’
“At this moment--for some time had passed--the Swiss announced luncheon,
which she--”
“How horridly forward it all sounds,” interrupted Mrs. Denby.
“Which she took with me.”
“Oh, dear, I wonder at it,” said Mrs. Denby.
“She had to,” said Denby.
“Yes, of course, you had the money,” said Mrs. Denby.
“Well, she tolerated--”
“That’s the word, I think,” assented Mrs. Denby.
“We walked the station at Vienna. We took an ice at Buda-Pesth. We
wondered about Queen Nathalie at Belgrade. We bought beads at Sofia. We
shivered over the Bulgarian soldiers squatting on the platform against
Turkish banditti. I told her how an Orient Express had been held up the
autumn before, a Frankfort banker abstracted, and his ears sent to his
counting-house with a request for a gold payment or else his tongue
would follow.”
“That was horrid of you,” said Mrs. Denby.
“Well, at Constantinople, her father was not there.”
“It was terrible,” said Mrs. Denby.
“But I knew the American Consul’s wife, who took in the situation.”
“It was very nice of her,” said Mrs. Denby.
“We roamed about the Pera; sentimentalized in San Sofia; bargained--”
“With your money,” said Mrs. Denby.
“In the bazaars. We rode in a palanquin, and drove to the Sweet Waters
of Europe, danced at the Russian Legation,--where she was irresistible.”
“Your eyes!” said Mrs. Denby, with severe sarcasm.
“One day her father appeared. She counted out three louis--”
“And five francs sixty centimes,” said Mrs. Denby.
“‘That isn’t all,’ said I.
“‘Why, let me see,’ she began.
“‘It isn’t all,’ said I. ‘There’s my heart.’”
“It was a very silly speech--not at all original,” said Mrs. Denby. “I
should think you would be ashamed to repeat it--before visitors. But,
Mr. Pemberton, you haven’t told me whether you take sugar?”
“Sugar, thanks,” said I. “That’s a good story. It reminds me of an
episode in Hunter’s novel--”
“This is a better story,” said Denby.
“Dick!” said Mrs. Denby, looking at him with sudden earnestness. “Do you
mean that--now!”
I felt, as is often the case lately, the superfluous bachelor. I went to
call on Sally Waters.
THE OLD PARTISAN
By Octave Thanet
I SAT so far back in the gallery that my opinion of my delegate friend
dwindled with every session. Nevertheless my unimportant seat had its
advantages. I could see the vast assembly and watch the throbbing of the
Republican pulse if I could not hear its heartbeats. Therefore, perhaps,
I studied my neighbors more than I might study them under different
circumstances. The great wooden hall had its transient and unsubstantial
character stamped on every bare wooden joist and unclinched nail. It
was gaudy with flags and bunting and cheap portraits. There were tin
bannerets crookedly marshalled on the floor, to indicate the homes of
the different States. A few delegates, doubtless new to the business and
overzealous, were already on the floor, but none of the principals were
visible. They were perspiring and arguing in those committee rooms,
those hotel lobbies and crowded hotel rooms where the real business of
the convention was already done and neatly prepared for presentation
to the nation. I had nothing to keep me from studying my neighbors.
In front of me sat two people who had occupied the same seats at every
session that I was present, a young girl and an old man. The girl wore
the omnipresent shirtwaist (of pretty blue and white tints, with
snowy cuffs and collar), and her green straw hat was decked with blue
corn-flowers, from which I inferred that she had an eye on the fashions.
Her black hair was thick and glossy under the green straw. I thought
that she had a graceful neck. It was very white. Whiter than her face,
which had a touch of sunburn, as if she were often out in the open air.
Somehow I concluded that she was a shop-girl and rode a wheel. If I were
wrong it is not likely that I shall ever know.
The old man I fancied was not so old as he looked; his delicate, haggard
profile may have owed its sunken lines and the dim eye to sickness
rather than to years. He wore the heavy black broadcloth of the rural
politician, and his coat sagged over his narrow chest as if he had left
his waistcoat at home. On his coat lapel were four old-fashioned Blaine
badges. Incessantly he fanned himself.
“It can’t be they ain’t going to nominate him to-day?” he asked rather
than asserted, his voice breaking on the higher notes, the mere wreck of
a voice.
“Oh, maybe later,” the girl reassured him.
“Well, I wanted to attend a Republican convention once more before I
died. Your ma would have it I wasn’t strong enough; but I knew better;
you and I knew better; did n’t we, Jenny?”
She made no answer except to pat his thin, ribbed brown hand with her
soft, white, slim one; but there was a world of sympathy in the gesture
and her silent smile.
“I wonder what your ma said when she came downstairs and found the
letter, and us gone,” he cackled with the garrulous glee of a child
recounting successful mischief; “made me think of the times when you was
little and I stole you away for the circus. Once, your pa thought you
was lost--‘member? And once, you had on your school-dress and you’d tore
it--she did scold you that time. But we had fun when they used to let me
have money, did n’t we, Jenny?”
“Well, now I earn money, we have good times, too, grandpa,” said Jenny,
smiling the same tender, comprehending smile.
“We do that; I don’t know what I would do ‘cept for you, lambie, and
this is--this is a grand time, Jenny, you look and listen; it’s a great
thing to see a nation making its principles and its president--and such
a president!”
He half turned his head as he spoke, with a mounting enthusiasm, thus
bringing his flushing face and eager eyes--no longer dim--into the focus
of his next neighbor’s bright gray eyes. The neighbor was a young man,
not very young but hardly to be called elderly, of an alert bearing and
kindly smile.
“I think him a pretty fair man myself,” said the other with a jocose
understatement; “I come from his town.”
What was there in such a simple statement to bring a distinctly anxious
look into the young girl’s soft eyes? There it was; one could not
mistake it.
“Well!” said the old man; there was a flattering deference in his voice.
“Well, well. And--and maybe you’ve seen him lately?” The quavering
tones sharpened with a keener feeling; it was almost as if the man were
inquiring for some one on whom he had a great stake of affection. “How
did he look? Was he better, stronger?”
“Oh, he looked elegant,” said the Ohio man, easily, but with a
disconcerted side glance at the girl whose eyes were imploring him.
“I’ve been a Blaine man ever since he was run, the time Bob Ingersoll
nominated him,” said the old man, who sighed as if relieved. “I was at
that convention and heard the speech----”
“Ah, that was a speech to hear,” said a man behind, and two or three men
edged their heads nearer.
The old Republican straightened his bent shoulders, his winter-stung
features softened and warmed at the manifestation of interest, his voice
sank to the confidential undertone of the narrator.
“You’re right, sir, right; it was a magnificent speech. I can see him
jest as he stood there, a stoutish, good-looking man, smooth-faced,
his eye straight ahead, and an alternate that sat next me--I was an
alternate; I’ve been an alternate four times; I could have been a
delegate, but I says, ‘No, abler men than me are wanting it; I’m willing
to fight in the ranks.’ But I wished I had a vote, a free vote that day,
I tell you. The alternate near me, he says, ‘You ‘ll hear something fine
now; I’ve heard him speak.’”
“You did, too, I guess.”