“I never expected a simple tea would cause so much trouble!” exclaimed
Mrs. Ward at the dinner table five days before the day set for the
Campbell visit. “I’ve simply got to send out the cards tomorrow!”
“Let me see that list again,” said John. “It’s first rate as it stands.
You’ve put in all our new clients and that’s the main thing. But if
Mrs. Shepherd is to pour chocolate, you’ll have to affix Mrs. Hovey to
the tea pot to prevent hard feeling. I’ve got everything all set with
Townley to make a big spread of Helen’s engagement to Ned and mine to
Alice next Sunday.”
“Please don’t be too noisy about it,” pleaded Helen. “Since you began
boosting the family I’m ashamed to look at the papers.”
“Circulation of both sheets has gone up, sis. Everybody in the Sycamore
valley’s on tip-toe for news of the Wards and Campbells. Tomorrow the
_Journal_ will print exclusive information from our office that the
mighty Ironsides corporation is to build a plant here. The happy word
that the railroad yards are to be doubled and the shops enlarged will
come from headquarters, but father will be interviewed to make sure we
get the credit.”
“I think I understand everything,” said Helen gazing musingly at
the engagement ring of which she had been the happy possessor for
just twenty-four hours, “except how Mr. Campbell began sending those
important people to you and father. You might almost think it was a
joke of some kind.”
“The joke certainly isn’t on us! I’ve decided to turn down the
nomination for prosecutor. As things are going I’d be a fool to
sacrifice my private practice for a public job. The general counsel
of the Transcontinental’s feeling us out as to whether we’ll take the
local attorneyship of that rascally corporation. Canby Taylor’s had it
for twenty years, and it would be some triumph to add it to our string
of scalps.”
The invitation list, rigidly revised and cut to one hundred, was
finally acceptable to all the members of the family, and Helen and John
had begun to address the envelopes when this task was interrupted by
the delivery of a telegram.
“It’s for you, mother,” said Helen, taking the envelope from the capped
and aproned housemaid who had been installed in the household against
the coming of the Campbells.
Mrs. Ward adjusted her glasses and settled herself to read with the
resigned air of one inured to the idea that telegrams are solely a
medium for communicating bad news.
“What is it, mother? Somebody dead?” asked John without looking up from
the envelope he was addressing to The Hon. and Mrs. Addison Swiggert.
“Worse!” murmured Mrs. Ward, staring vacantly.
“Nothing can be worse!” ejaculated Helen, catching the bit of paper as
it fell fluttering to the floor. “The Campbells are not coming!” she
gasped.
“Not coming!” faltered Robert Fleming Ward, throwing down a brief he
was studying.
“Read it, for heaven’s sake!” commanded John.
Helen, with difficulty bringing her eyes to meet the dark tidings,
began to read:
So sorry we are obliged to change our plans and cannot pay you the
visit to which we had looked forward with so much pleasure----
“It’s horrible! It’s positively tragic,” sobbed Mrs. Ward, groping for
her handkerchief.
“Hurry on, Helen!” ordered John. “There’s a lot more of it.”
Walter feels that he ought to attend a conference of Southern bankers
unexpectedly called for February eighteen at Baltimore, and we are
obliged to defer the California trip indefinitely. However, we are
going down in the yacht and Walter has happily solved the whole
problem by insisting that you all come to New York and make the
cruise with us.
“Glory! glory hallelujah!” John shouted.
The yacht is big enough to be comfortable for even a poor sailor like
me, so we can have a cosy time together. We want your husband, son
and daughter to come of course, and you will be our guests throughout
the journey. The Manager of the Transcontinental will put his private
car at your disposal. Do wire at once that you will come. With much
love.
RUTH CAMPBELL.
“Can you beat it! _Can_ you beat it!” cried John.
“After all this talk--and the publicity and everything----” his mother
began plaintively.
“And all these people who’ve brought us business in the hope of meeting
the Campbells and getting favors from him!” his father added hopelessly.
“My dear parents!” cried John pleadingly, flinging up his arm with a
dramatic gesture he had found effective in commanding the attention of
juries,--“my _dear_ parents, nothing could be more fortunate! If the
Campbells had come we’d have been hard put to please all these people
who want the joy of shaking big money by the hand. The old boy very
shrewdly switched all these business matters to father and me to handle
so we’ve already got about everything Kernville needs, and we’ve done
it in a way that makes us the best advertised law firm in the state.”
“But the humiliation----” his mother began in a hoarse whisper.
“Humiliation nothing!” John caught her up. “Don’t you realize that an
announcement that the Campbells are sending a private car to haul us
down to their yacht will make the biggest hit of all! And you’re going,
mother--and you, Helen; and father’s got to go, too! You all deserve
it, and I’ll stay right here and bask in the warm radiance of your
grandeur while the _White Gull_ rides the waves.”
“You think, then, the change won’t ruin _everything_?” his mother asked
with a gulp.
“John’s perfectly right!” declared Helen. “The Campbell name has
already worked magic in our lives and through us done wonders for
Kernville. It will be glorious to sail in a yacht! They didn’t need
to ask us, and nothing could be friendlier or more cordial than that
telegram.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Ward assented. “But I can’t possibly leave right
now. There’s that Lindley coal case coming up for trial next week, and
John’s not familiar with it.”
“Yes, my dear father, but when you ask for a postponement on the
perfectly legitimate ground that Walter Scott Campbell wants you to go
yachting with him, that case will be set forward and you will acquire
much merit in the eyes of the court! You’ll need a couple of white
flannel suits and some rubber-soled shoes, but you can pick them up in
New York. Really this change of plans is the biggest thing of all.
Take this pad, mother, and write your acceptance, carefully expressing
my deep regret that owing to pressure of professional duties I am
unable to leave.”
* * * * *
The announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell had been
obliged to postpone their visit to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fleming Ward
until spring, but that Mr. and Mrs. Ward and Miss Helen were to
cruise with them in the _White Gull_ did not fail of the impression
which John had predicted such a revelation would make upon his fellow
citizens. A yacht that would sail the winter seas was a challenge to
the imagination of home-keeping folk whose most daring adventure upon
the deep was an occasional cruise in an excursion steamer on the Great
Lakes.
Kernville was proud of the Wards, and so many citizens of both genders
expressed their affection with flowers that the car in which the trio
set out for New York looked like a bridal bower.
Ned Shepherd and Alice Hovey were at the station with John to see
them off and several hundred other citizens looked on with mingled
emotions of admiration and envy. The _Journal’s_ photographer caught
an excellent picture of Mrs. Ward and Helen, their arms full of roses,
standing on the rear platform as the train pulled out.
* * * * *
“That boy of yours,” remarked Walter Scott Campbell, as he sat with
Robert Fleming Ward in the smoking room of the _White Gull_ as the
yacht felt her way cautiously up Chesapeake Bay,--“That boy must be
a good deal of a lad. Even at long range you can feel his energy and
enterprise.”
“He’s a good boy,” Ward agreed diffidently, “and full of ginger. I get
out of breath trying to keep up with him.”
Campbell chuckled. “Knows a chance when he sees it.” Another Campbell
chuckle. “I like youngsters of that type. He’s profited of course by
your own long experience in the law?”
“He’s as good a lawyer as I am now--more resourceful, and a better hand
in dealing with people.”
“That boy knows more than the law,” declared Campbell with another
chuckle. “He knows human nature!”
As their eyes met Ward’s face broke into a smile as he realized that
Campbell understood everything, and was not at all displeased at the
outrageous fashion in which John had used his name.
“You know of Gaspard & Collins, in New York?” asked the magnate. “They
do a good deal of my legal work. They’re looking for a young man,
westerner preferred, to go into the firm, and it just occurs to me that
your John would just suit them. I can understand how you would feel
about losing him, but it’s a good opportunity to get in touch with
important affairs. Talk it over with your wife, and if you think well
of the idea you can wire him tomorrow. It’s a fair night; let’s go on
deck and watch the lights.”