At the age of eleven months and eight days Pat walked for the first
time. Peter thought he might have been considerate enough to have chosen
a Sunday. His first tooth came on a Sunday, but that wasn't any fun.
Besides, it couldn't be tied exactly to some particular day and minute
the way that the walking could. Nor was there any gaiety about it.
However, Peter did not quite miss the walking for he came in time to see
the last couple of hundred yards.
It was a rainy Saturday and Peter happened home early. Kate met him in
the hall with a finger at her lips. "He's walking."
She seemed to feel that if anybody said anything about it the child
would probably grow self-conscious and collapse. There appeared to be a
certain sagacity in that. It was not an experiment but an adventure. One
step led to another. At terrific speed Pat went round and round the
room. He might have been Bobby Walthour trying to steal a lap in a six
day race. Kate and Peter watched him breathlessly from behind the
curtains of the living-room.
"How long has this been going on?" Peter wanted to know.
"It's these ten minutes."
Peter pulled out his gold stop watch and created thereby a psychic
crisis. Perhaps Pat felt that his amateur standing was in jeopardy. At
any rate he tripped on the edge of a rug, almost turned a somersault,
blacked his eye and cried for half an hour.
He did not even attempt to walk again for a week. After that it became
habitual. Up to this time Peter had never said much to anybody about his
son. He did not talk to the men at the office about the child. There
wouldn't be any sense in interrupting Charlie Hall in the middle of a
story about city politics with, "My son's got two teeth." They were all
busy men and it was not conceivable that they would care how much Pat
Neale weighed.
Walking was a little different. Maybe it wasn't exactly a first page
story but still Peter wanted to tell somebody about it. For the first
time he was disposed to show off Pat--in person. Of course eleven months
and eights days wasn't a record. Peter would have to look into that and
find out the best accepted performance. He remembered being told that
his own brother had walked at eight months but he had no means of
knowing whether or not that was authentic.
The desire to confide in somebody eventually took Peter around to a
stage door, though not the one at the end of the alley. From a Sunday
graphic section he had noticed that Vonnie Bandana was playing in a
musical show called "Harvest Moon." Vonnie Bandana wasn't really her
name. The caption said Vonnie Ryan and Peter was sure it was the same
girl. Evidently the Eight Bandana Sisters had gone the way of Brook Farm
and Halcyon Hall and many another experiment in co-operation. Vonnie
knew him all right.
"You're the man that married Maria Algarez," she said.
"Yes, but she's gone away."
"I'm sorry."
"That's all right. It was a long time ago. Almost a year now. She was a
good dancer, wasn't she?"
"Maria, oh, yes, she could dance. I wondered what became of her."
"I don't know that. I haven't heard from her at all. I think she's
abroad."
"Have you seen our show?"
"No, I just happened to notice your picture in the Bulletin last
Sunday."
"Did you? Wasn't that smart of you? I've got a part in this. Lines and
everything. I sing a song. You know I don't sing it much. Just one verse
and the chorus and then I dance it. The dance is all right."
Peter and Vonnie had been slowly walking away from the theatre towards
Broadway while they carried on this discussion and when they reached the
avenue Vonnie stopped.
"Are you going my way? I go up to a Hundred and Sixty-eighth street.
Just a little this side of Albany."
"Well, as a matter of fact, I was wondering if maybe you wouldn't come
out and have supper with me. I just happened to be going by the theatre
and I stopped around and thought I might run into you."
"Listen," said Vonnie. "I'll have supper with you, but don't pull any
more of that 'I just happened to be going by the theatre.' That's awful.
You ought to say you've been planning to come and see me for a week and
came all the way in from New Rochelle just special. You don't know
anything about women, do you?"
"I guess I don't," said Peter very soberly.
"Oh, I am sorry," Vonnie laid her hand on his arm. "I didn't mean
anything by that. Forget it. You're all right even if I don't remember
your name. Did you ever tell it to me?"
"My name's Peter Neale."
"You're not the Peter Neale that writes in the Bulletin, are you?"
"Yes, I do a sporting column. That looking 'em over stuff."
"I've been looking for you. Do you know I almost wrote you a letter.
Where do you get that stuff about Sandow Mertes being a more valuable
man than George Browne?"
"Browne can't hit lefthanders."
"That's the bunk. You and the rest of the sporting writers keep pulling
that stuff about him and of course he can't. Suppose there was somebody
standing in the wings every night just before I came on, yelling at me,
'Vonnie, you can't dance,' do you suppose I could go on and do that song
for a cent? Of course I couldn't. You and the rest of you, you're just
ruining this fellow. The best looking young outfielder I've seen in ten
years. Why he could run up a hill faster than Mertes could roll down
one."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Peter. It was the
boldest speech he had ever made to a woman and he did it without turning
a hair. Vonnie was wrong. George Browne couldn't hit lefthanders. Before
he took her home Vonnie had arranged to go with him to the Polo Grounds
the next day and to come and see the baby on Sunday.
"Here," she said as he was turning away from the door of her apartment,
"you've got a kiss coming to you. When you live up as far as One Hundred
and Sixty-eighth Street you've got to do at least that much for any
fellow that takes you home."
"And say, listen," said Vonnie, just before she closed the door, "next
month I'm going to move to Two Hundred and Forty-second Street."