Nick shook his head and went on.
He wandered leisurely along the gravel path that led to the park golf
shelter. The wide porch was crowded with golfers and idlers. A foursome
was teed up at the first tee. Nick leaned against a porch pillar waiting
for them to drive. That old boy had pretty good practise swing ...
Stiff, though ... Lookit that dame. Je's! I bet she takes fifteen shots
before she ever gets on to the green ... There, that kid had pretty good
drive. Must of been hundred and fifty, anyway. Pretty good for a kid.
Nick, in the course of his kaleidoscopic career, had been a caddie at
thirteen in torn shirt and flapping knickers. He had played the smooth,
expert, scornful game of the caddie with a natural swing from the lithe
waist and a follow-through that was the envy of the muscle-bound men
who watched him. He hadn't played in years. The game no longer
interested him. He entered the shelter lunchroom. The counters were
lined with lean, brown, hungry men and lean, brown, hungry women. They
were eating incredible dishes considering that the hour was 3 P.
M. and the day a hot one. Corned-beef hash with a poached egg on
top; wieners and potato salad; meat pies; hot roast beef sandwiches;
steaming cups of coffee in thick white ware; watermelon. Nick slid a leg
over a stool as he had done earlier in the afternoon. Here, too, the
Hebes were of stern stuff, as they needs must be to serve these ravenous
hordes of club swingers who swarmed upon them from dawn to dusk. Their
task it was to wait upon the golfing male, which is man at his
simplest--reduced to the least common denominator and shorn of all
attraction for the female eye and heart. They represented merely hungry
mouths, weary muscles, reaching fists. The waitresses served them as a
capable attendant serves another woman's child--efficiently and without
emotion.
"Blueberry pie à la mode," said Nick--"with strawberry ice cream."
Inured as she was to the horrors of gastronomic miscegenation, the
waitress--an old girl--recoiled at this.
"Say, I don't think you'd like that. They don't mix so very good. Why
don't you try the peach pie instead with the strawberry ice cream--if
you want strawberry?" He looked so young and cool and fresh.
"Blueberry," repeated Nick sternly, and looked her in the eye. The old
waitress laughed a little and was surprised to find herself laughing.
"'S for you to say." She brought him the monstrous mixture, and he
devoured it to the last chromatic crumb.
"Nothing the matter with that," he remarked as she passed, dish-laden.
She laughed again tolerantly, almost tenderly. "Good thing you're
young." Her busy glance lingered a brief moment on his face. He
sauntered out.
Now he took the path to the right of the shelter, crossed the road,
struck the path again, came to a rustic bridge that humped high in the
middle, spanning a cool green stream, willow-bordered. The cool green
stream was an emerald chain that threaded its way in a complete circlet
about the sylvan spot known as Wooded Island, relic of World's Fair
days.
The little island lay, like a thing under enchantment, silent, fragrant,
golden, green, exquisite. Squirrels and blackbirds, rabbits and pigeons
mingled in Æsopian accord. The air was warm and still, held by the
encircling trees and shrubbery. There was not a soul to be seen. At the
far north end the two Japanese model houses, survivors of the
exposition, gleamed white among the trees.
Nick stood a moment. His eyelids closed, languorously. He stretched his
arms out and up deliciously, bringing his stomach in and his chest out.
He took off his cap and stuffed it into his pocket. He strolled across
the thick cool nap of the grass, deserting the pebble path. At the west
edge of the island a sign said: "No One Allowed in the Shrubbery."
Ignoring it, Nick parted the branches, stopped and crept, reached the
bank that sloped down to the cool green stream, took off his coat, and
lay relaxed upon the ground. Above him the tree branches made a pattern
against the sky. Little ripples lipped the shore. Scampering
velvet-footed things, feathered things, winged things made pleasant stir
among the leaves. Nick slept.
He awoke in half an hour refreshed. He lay there, thinking of nothing--a
charming gift. He found a stray peanut in his pocket and fed it to a
friendly squirrel. His hand encountered the cool metal of his harmonica.
He drew out the instrument, placed his coat, folded, under his head,
crossed his knees, one leg swinging idly, and began to play rapturously.
He was perfectly happy. He played Gimme Love, whose jazz measures are
stolen from Mendelssohn's Spring Song. He did not know this. The leaves
rustled. He did not turn his head.
"Hello, Pan!" said a voice. A girl came down the slope and seated
herself beside him. She was not smiling.
Nick removed the harmonica from his lips and wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand. "Hello who?"
"Hello, Pan."
"Wrong number, lady," Nick said, and again applied his lips to the mouth
organ. The girl laughed then, throwing back her head. Her throat was
long and slim and brown. She clasped her knees with her arms and looked
at Nick amusedly. Nick thought she was a kind of homely little thing.
"Pan," she explained, "was a pagan deity. He played pipes in the woods."
"'S all right with me," Nick ventured, bewildered but amiable. He wished
she'd go away. But she didn't. She began to take off her shoes and
stockings. She went down to the water's edge, then, and paddled her
feet. Nick sat up, outraged. "Say, you can't do that."
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Oh, yes, I can. It's so
hot." She wriggled her toes ecstatically.
The leaves rustled again, briskly, unmistakably this time. A heavy
tread. A rough voice. "Say, looka here! Get out of there, you! What
the----" A policeman, red-faced, wroth. "You can't do that! Get outa
here!"
It was like a movie, Nick thought.
The girl turned her head. "Oh, now, Mr. Elwood," she said.
"Oh, it's you, miss," said the policeman. You would not have believed it
could be the same policeman. He even giggled. "Thought you was away."
"I was. In fact, I am, really. I just got sick of it and ran away for a
day. Drove. Alone. The family'll be wild."
"All the way?" said the policeman, incredulously. "Say, I thought that
looked like your car standing out there by the road; but I says no, she
ain't in town." He looked sharply at Nick, whose face had an Indian
composure, though his feelings were mixed. "Who's this?"
"He's a friend of mine. His name's Pan." She was drying her feet with an
inadequate rose-coloured handkerchief. She crept crabwise up the bank,
and put on her stockings and slippers.
"Why'n't you come out and set on a bench?" suggested the policeman,
worriedly.
The girl shook her head. "In Arcadia we don't sit on benches. I should
think you'd know that. Go on away, there's a dear. I want to talk to
this--to Pan."
He persisted. "What'd your pa say, I'd like to know!" The girl shrugged
her shoulders. Nick made as though to rise. He was worried. A nut,
that's what. She pressed him down again with a hard brown hand.
"Now it's all right. He's going. Old Fuss!" The policeman stood a brief
moment longer. Then the foliage rustled again. He was gone. The girl
sighed, happily. "Play that thing some more, will you? You're a wiz at
it, aren't you?"
"I'm pretty good," said Nick, modestly. Then the outrageousness of her
conduct struck him afresh. "Say, who're you, anyway?"
"My name's Berry--short for Bernice.... What's yours, Pan?"
"Nick--that is--Nick."
"Ugh, terrible! I'll stick to Pan. What d'you do when you're not
Panning?" Then, at the bewilderment in his face: "What's your job?"
"I work in the Ideal Garage. Say, you're pretty nosey, ain't you?"
"Yes, pretty.... That accounts for your nails, h'm?" She looked at her
own brown paws. "'Bout as bad as mine. I drove one hundred and fifty
miles to-day."
"Ya-as, you did!"
"I did! Started at six. And I'll probably drive back to-night."
"You're crazy!"
"I know it," she agreed, "and it's wonderful.... Can you play the Tommy
Toddle?"
"Yeh. It's kind of hard, though, where the runs are. I don't get the
runs so very good." He played it. She kept time with head and feet. When
he had finished and wiped his lips:
"Elegant!" She took the harmonica from him, wiped it brazenly on the
much-abused, rose-coloured handkerchief and began to play, her cheeks
puffed out, her eyes round with effort. She played the Tommy Toddle, and
her runs were perfect. Nick's chagrin was swallowed by his admiration
and envy.
"Say, kid, you got more wind than a factory whistle. Who learned you to
play?"