With Wesley Bender, Ramsey was again upon fair terms before the winter
had run its course; the two were neighbours and, moreover, were drawn
together by a community of interests which made their reconciliation a
necessity. Ramsey played the guitar and Wesley played the mandolin.
All ill feeling between them died with the first duet of spring, yet the
twinkling they made had no charm to soothe the savage breast of Ramsey
whenever the Teacher's Pet came into his thoughts. He daydreamed a
thousand ways of putting her in her place, but was unable to carry
out any of them, and had but a cobwebby satisfaction in imagining
discomfitures for her which remained imaginary. With a yearning so
poignant that it hurt, he yearned and yearned to show her what she
really was. “Just once!” he said to Fred Mitchell. “That's all I ask,
just once. Just gimme one chance to show that girl what she really is.
I guess if I ever get the chance she'll find out what's the matter with
her, for _once_ in her life, anyway!” Thus it came to be talked about
and understood and expected in Ramsey's circle, all male, that Dora
Yocum's day was coming. The nature of the disaster was left vague, but
there was no doubt in the world that retribution merely awaited its
ideal opportunity. “You'll see!” said Ramsey. “The time'll come when
that ole girl'll wish she'd moved o' this town before she ever got
appointed monitor of _our_ class! Just you wait!”
They waited, but conditions appeared to remain unfavourable
indefinitely. Perhaps the great opportunity might have arrived if Ramsey
had been able to achieve a startling importance in any of the “various
divergent yet parallel lines of school endeavour”--one of the phrases by
means of which teachers and principal clogged the minds of their unarmed
auditors. But though he was far from being the dumb driven beast of
misfortune that he seemed in the schoolroom, and, in fact, lived a
double life, exhibiting in his out-of-school hours a remarkable example
of “secondary personality”--a creature fearing nothing and capable
of laughter; blue-eyed, fairly robust, and anything but dumb--he was
nevertheless without endowment or attainment great enough to get him
distinction.
He “tried for” the high-school eleven, and “tried for” the nine, but
the experts were not long in eliminating him from either of these
competitions, and he had to content himself with cheering instead of
getting cheered. He was by no manner of means athlete enough, or enough
of anything else, to put Dora Yocum in her place, and so he and the
great opportunity were still waiting in May, at the end of the second
year of high school, when the class, now the “10 A,” reverted to an old
fashion and decided to entertain itself with a woodland picnic.
They gathered upon the sandy banks of a creek, in the blue shade of big,
patchy-barked sycamores, with a dancing sky on top of everything and
gold dust atwinkle over the water. Hither the napkin-covered baskets
were brought from the wagons and assembled in the shade, where they
appeared as an attractive little meadow of white napery, and gave both
surprise and pleasure to communities of ants and to other original
settlers of the neighbourhood.
From this nucleus or headquarters of the picnic, various expeditions
set forth up and down the creek and through the woods that bordered it.
Camera work was constant; spring wild flowers were accumulated by groups
of girls who trooped through the woods with eager eyes searching the
thickets; two envied boy fishermen established themselves upon a bank
up-stream, with hooks and lines thoughtfully brought with them, and
poles which they fashioned from young saplings. They took mussels from
the shallows, for bait, and having gone to all this trouble, declined
to share with friends less energetic and provident the perquisites and
pleasures secured to themselves.
Albert Paxton was another person who proved his enterprise. Having
visited the spot some days before, he had hired for his exclusive use
throughout the duration of the picnic an old rowboat belonging to a
shanty squatter; it was the only rowboat within a mile or two and Albert
had his own uses for it. Albert was the class lover and, after first
taking the three chaperon teachers “out for a row,” an excursion
concluded in about ten minutes, he disembarked them; Sadie Clews stepped
into the boat, a pocket camera in one hand, a tennis racket in the
other; and the two spent the rest of the day, except for the luncheon
interval, solemnly drifting along the banks or grounded on a shoal. Now
and then Albert would row a few strokes, and at almost any time when the
populated shore glanced toward them, Sadie would be seen photographing
Albert, or Albert would be seen photographing Sadie, but the tennis
racket remained an enigma. Oarsman and passenger appeared to have no
conversation whatever--not once was either seen or heard to address a
remark to the other; and they looked as placid as their own upside-down
reflections in one of the still pools they slowly floated over. They
were sixteen, and had been “engaged” more than two years.
On the borders of the little meadow of baskets there had been deposited
two black shapes, which remained undisturbed throughout the day, a
closed guitar case and a closed mandolin case, no doubt containing each
its proper instrument. So far as any use of these went they seemed to be
of the same leisure class to which Sadie's tennis racket belonged, for
when one of the teachers suggested music, the musicians proved shy.
Wesley Bender said they hadn't learned to play anything much and,
besides, he had a couple o' broken strings he didn't know as he could
fix up; and Ramsey said he guessed it seemed kind o' too hot to play
much. Joining friends, they organized a contest in marksmanship, the
target being a floating can which they assailed with pebbles; and after
that they “skipped” flat stones upon the surface of the water, then went
to join a group gathered about Willis Parker and Heinie Krusemeyer.
No fish had been caught, a lack of luck crossly attributed by the
fishermen to the noise made by constant advice on the part of their
attendant gallery. Messrs. Milholland, Bender, and the other rock
throwers came up shouting, and were ill received.
“For heaven's sakes,” Heinie Krusemeyer demanded, “can't you shut up?
Here we just first got the girls to keep their mouths shut a minute and
I almost had a big pickerel or something on my hook, and here you got
to up and yell so he chases himself away! Why can't nobody show a little
sense sometimes when they ought to?”
“I should say so!” his comrade exclaimed. “If people would only just
take and think of all the trouble we been to, it seems funny somebody
couldn't let us have half a chance to get a few good fish. What chance
they got to bite with a lot o' _girls_ gabbin' away, and then, just as
we get 'em quieted down, all you men got to come bustin' up here yellin'
your heads off. A fish isn't goin' to bite when he can't even hear
himself think! Anybody ought to know that much.”
But the new arrivals hooted. _“Fish!”_ Ramsey vociferated. “I'll bet
a hundred dollars there hasn't been even a minny in this creek for the
last sixty years!”
“There is, too!” said Heinie, bitterly. “But I wouldn't be surprised
there wouldn't be no longer if you got to keep up this noise. If you'd
shut up just a minute you could see yourself there's fish here.”
In whispers several of the tamed girls at once heartily corroborated
this statement, whereupon the newcomers ceased to gibe and consented to
silence. Ramsey leaned forth over the edge of the overhanging bank,
a dirt precipice five feet above the water, and peered into the
indeterminable depths below. The pool had been stirred, partly by the
inexpert pokings of the fishermen and partly by small clods and bits
of dirt dislodged from above by the feet of the audience. The water,
consequently, was but brownly translucent and revealed its secrets
reluctantly; nevertheless certain dim little shapes had been observed
to move within it, and were still there. Ramsey failed to see them at
first.
“Where's any ole fish?” he inquired, scornfully.
“Oh, my goodness!” Heinie Krusemeyer moaned. “_Can't_ you shut up?”
“Look!” whispered the girl who stood nearest to Ramsey. She pointed.
“There's one. Right down there by Willis's hook. Don't you see him?”
Ramsey was impressed enough to whisper. “Is there? I don't see him. I
can't--”
The girl came closer to him, and, the better to show him, leaned out
over the edge of the bank, and, for safety in maintaining her balance,
rested her left hand upon his shoulder while she pointed with her right.
Thereupon something happened to Ramsey. The touch upon his shoulder was
almost nothing, and he had never taken the slightest interest in Milla
Rust (to whom that small warm hand belonged), though she was the class
beauty, and long established in the office. Now, all at once, a peculiar
and heretofore entirely unfamiliar sensation suddenly became important
in the upper part of his chest. For a moment he held his breath, an
involuntary action;--he seemed to be standing in a shower of flowers.
“Don't you see it, Ramsey?” Milla whispered. “It's a great big one. Why,
it must be as long as--as your shoe! Look!”
Ramsey saw nothing but the thick round curl on Milla's shoulder. Milla
had a group of curls on each of her shoulders, for she got her modes at
the Movies and had that sort of prettiness: large, gentle, calculating
eyes, and a full, softly modelled face, implacably sweet. Ramsey was
accustomed to all this charm, and Milla had never before been of more
importance to him than an equal weight of school furniture--but all at
once some magic had enveloped her. That curl upon the shoulder
nearest him was shot with dazzling fibres of sunshine. He seemed to be
trembling.
“I don't see it,” he murmured, huskily, afraid that she might remove her
hand. “I can't see any fish, Milla.”
She leaned farther out over the bank. “Why, there, goosie!” she
whispered. “Right there.”
“I can't see it.”
She leaned still farther, bending down to point. “Why right th--”
At this moment she removed her hand from his shoulder, though
unwillingly. She clutched at him, in fact, but without avail. She had
been too amiable.
A loud shriek was uttered by throats abler to vocalize, just then, than
Milla's, for in her great surprise she said nothing whatever--the shriek
came from the other girls as Milla left the crest of the overhanging
bank and almost horizontally disappeared into the brown water. There
was a tumultuous splash, and then of Milla Rust and her well-known
beautifulness there was nothing visible in the superficial world, nor
upon the surface of that creek. The vanishment was total.
“_Save_ her!”
Several girls afterward admitted having used this expression, and little
Miss Floy Williams, the youngest and smallest member of the class, was
unable to deny that she had said, “Oh, God!” Nothing could have been
more natural, and the matter need not have been brought before her with
such insistence and frequency, during the two remaining years of her
undergraduate career.
Ramsey was one of those who heard this exclamation, later so famous,
and perhaps it was what roused him to heroism. He dived from the bank,
headlong, and the strange thought in his mind was “I guess _this_'ll
show Dora Yocum!” He should have been thinking of Milla, of course, at
such a time, particularly after the little enchantment just laid upon
him by Milla's touch and Milla's curls; and he knew well enough that
Miss Yocum was not among the spectators. She was half a mile away, as
it happened, gathering “botanical specimens” with one of the
teachers--which was her idea of what to do at a picnic!
Ramsey struck the water hard, and in the same instant struck something
harder. Wesley Bender's bundle of books had given him no such shock
as he received now, and if the creek bottom had not been of mud, just
there, the top of his young head might have declined the strain. Half
stunned, choking, spluttering he somehow floundered to his feet; and
when he could get his eyes a little cleared of water he found himself
wavering face to face with a blurred vision of Milla Rust. She had risen
up out of the pond and stood knee deep, like a lovely drenched figure in
a fountain.
Upon the bank above them, Willis Parker was jumping up and down,
gesticulating and shouting fiercely. “Now I guess you're satisfied our
fishin' _is_ spoilt! Whyn't you listen me? I _told_ you it wasn't more'n
three feet deep! I and Heinie waded all over this creek gettin' our
bait. You're a pretty sight!”
Of Milla he spoke unwittingly the literal truth. Even with her hair thus
wild and sodden, Milla rose from immersion blushing and prettier than
ever; and she was prettiest of all when she stretched out her hand
helplessly to Ramsey and he led her up out of the waters. They had
plenty of assistance to scramble to the top of the bank, and there Milla
was surrounded and borne away with a great clacketing and tumult. Ramsey
gave his coat into the hands of friends, who twisted the water out of
it for him, while he sat upon the grass in the sun, rubbed his head, and
experimented with his neck to see if it would “work.” The sunshine was
strong and hot; in half an hour he and his clothes were dry--or at least
“dry enough,” as he said, and except for some soreness of head and neck,
and the general crumpledness of his apparel, he seemed to be in all
ways much as usual when shouts and whistlings summoned all the party
to luncheon at the rendezvous. The change that made him different was
invisible.