BUSINESS AND PIE
That Mr. Buzz Clendenning has in the composition of his nature a very
large portion of nice foolishness which makes the heart of a lonely
person most comfortable. He decided, upon that very first day of our
introduction, that I was to be as a small brother to him who was much
loved but also to be much joked about a quaintness which he chose to
call "French greenness," and for which I was most grateful because
with that excuse I could cover all mistakes that arose from my being a
girl who was ignorant of the exact methods of being a man. And, also,
that nice attitude towards me was of quite a contagion, for all of the
young ladies and gentlemen of the city of Hayesville became the same
to me and all of the time my heart was warm and rejoiced at their
affection shown in banter and jokes.
The morning after that very much enjoyed dinner dance, with which the
Governor Faulkner complimented my Uncle, the General Robert, through
me, I was standing in front of the mirror in my room without my coat
or my collar, endeavoring to reduce the wave in my black hair to the
sleekness of that of my beloved Buzz, which had a difficulty because
of one lock over my temple whose waywardness I had for the last few
years trained to fall upon my cheek for purposes of coquetry and which
would persist in trying still to fulfill that unworthy function. And
right in the center of my punishment of that lovelock with the stiff
brush without a handle, which was twins with another that had come
with the gentleman's traveling bag which I had purchased in New York
of the nice fat gentleman in the store of clothing for men, into my
room came that Buzz without any ceremony save a rap upon my door which
did not allow sufficient time for any response from me. I blushed with
alarm at the thought that his entrance might have come at a much
earlier stage of my toilet and I made a resolve to lock the door tight
in future, at the same time turning to greet him with a fine and great
composure.
"Say, Bobby, are you in for side-stepping the chiefs at eleven-thirty
and going with me to take a nice bunch of calicoes out to the Country
Club for a little midday sandwich dance? You can eat a thin ham and
fox trot at the same time. Sue and Belle and Kate Keith all want to
get on to that long slide you've brought over direct from Paree. It
stuck in their systems last evening and they want more. Want to go?"
"With a greatness of pleasure, but His Excellency has commanded me at
eleven o'clock and will I be through the tasks at the hour for
escorting those calicoes out to your Club for a dance?" I asked with
great delight as I continued my operations with the brush upon the
rebellious lock.
"You'll have time if you stop that primping and hustle into your
collar and coat. Here, let me show you how to doctor that place where
the cow licked you. Why don't you take both brushes to it? Like this!"
With which Mr. Buzz took from my hand the one brush and from the high
dressing table the other, for which my ignorance had discovered no
use, and did then commence a vigorous assault on my enemy the curl.
"What was it you said of a cow, my Buzz?" I questioned him as I made a
squirming under the vigor of his attack upon my hair.
"When hair acts up like this we call it a cowlick in United States
language. See here, L'Aiglon, old boy, this hair looks as if it had at
one time been curled. Did you wear it that way in Paris?" And as he
asked the question he gave that side of my hair one more vigorous
sweep and stood off to admire his work.
"No, my Buzz, I assure you that it was the cruelty of that cow you
mention, while I was at a very tender age," I answered with a laugh
into his eyes that covered nicely the blush that rose to my cheek at
his accusation concerning the lovelock.
"Well, knot that tie now in a jiffy and climb into your coat. Let's
get to the Capitol and give the old boys as little of our attention as
they'll stand for, and then beat it for the girls. Bet my chief growls
blue blazes at me over the way Sue ragged him about you last night.
He'll issue a command at the point of the bayonet to me to keep you
away from the bunch, and I'll agree just so as to make the slide from
under easy. Come on." And while he spoke to me, that Buzz raced me
down the hall of my ancestors and out into his very slim, fast car
before I could get breath for speaking.
"But suppose His Excellency the Gouverneur Faulkner requires my
presence beyond that half hour after eleven o'clock, my Buzz, is it
that you will await me for a few short minutes?" I asked of him as we
ascended the steps of the Capitol of the State of Harpeth.
"Oh, Bill won't keep you any longer than that. He'll have twenty other
interviews on the string for to-day. Fifteen minutes will be about
right for you; you wait for me in the General's anteroom. I'll have to
get heroics before instructions. I always do. Now beat it." With which
words my Buzz left me in the wide hall of the great Capitol before a
door marked: "Office of the Governor."
Upon that door I knocked and it was immediately opened to me by fine
black Cato, whose eyes shone in recognition of me.
"Got it in yo' shoe?" he demanded in a whisper.
"Yes, my good Cato," I responded also in a low tone of voice.
"Den pass on in to de Governor; he am waitin' fer you. You's safe,
chile." And he escorted me past several gentlemen seated and standing
in groups, to another door, which he opened for me and through which
he motioned me to pass.
"Mr. Robert Carruthers," he announced me with the greatest ceremony.
"Go in, honey," he said softly and I passed into the room whose door
he closed quietly behind me.
"Good morning, Robert," said the Gouverneur Faulkner to me as I came
and stood opposite him at the edge of his wide desk. And he smiled at
me with a great gentleness that had also humor playing into it from
the corners of his eyes and mouth. "I'm afraid that you've landed in
the midst of a genuine case of American hustle this 'morning after.'
Here are two lists of specifications, one in English weights and
measurements and the other in French. I want you to compare them
carefully, checking them as you go and then re-checking them. I want
to be sure they are the same. Also make a good literal translation of
any notes that may be in French and compare them with the notes in
English. Do you think it can be done for me by three o'clock, in time
for a conference I have at that hour?" With which request he, the
Gouverneur Faulkner, handed me two large sheets of paper down which
were many long columns of figures.
"_Mon Dieu_," I said to myself under my breath, for always I have
had to count out the pieces of money necessary to give to Nannette for
the washer of the linen at the Chateau de Grez, upon the fingers of my
hands, which often seemed too few to furnish me sufficient aid. But in
a small instant I had recovered my courage, which brought with it a
determination to do that task if it meant my death.
"Yes, Your Excellency," I answered him with a great composure in the
face of the tragedy.
"You'll find the small office between my office and that of General
Carruthers empty. A ring of the bell under the desk means for you to
come to me. I'll try not to interrupt you. Two rings means to go to
the General. That is about all." With a wave of his hand the
Gouverneur Faulkner dismissed me to my death.
With my head up in the air I turned from him and prepared to retire to
my prison from which I could see no release, when again I heard his
summons. He had risen and was standing beside his desk and as I turned
he held out his hand into which I laid mine as he drew me near to him.
"Youngster," he said and the smile which all persons call cold was all
of gentleness into my eyes, "these are going to be some hard days for
us all, these next ten, and if I drive you too hard, balk, will you?"
"To the death for you I'll go, my Gouverneur Faulkner," I answered
him, looking straight into his tired eyes that were so deep under the
black, silver-tipped wings of his brows. I did not mean that death I
had threatened myself from the mathematics in the paper, but in my
heart there was something that rose and answered the sadness in his
eyes with again all that savageness of a barbarian.
"Then I'll take you to the point of demise--almost--if I need you," he
answered me with a laugh that hid a quiver of emotion in his voice as
something that was like unto a spark shot from the depths of his eyes
into the depths of mine. "Go get the papers verified and let me know
when you have finished." And this time I was in reality dismissed. I
went; but in my heart was a strange smoulder that the spark had
kindled.
In the small room that opened off of that of the Gouverneur Faulkner,
with a door that I knew to lead into the room of my Uncle, the General
Robert, I seated myself at a table by a window which looked down upon
the city spread at the foot of the Capitol hill lying shimmering in
the young spring mists that drifted across its housetops. I laid down
the papers, took a pencil from a tray close beside my hand and then
faced the most dreadful of any situation that I had ever brought down
upon my own head. I also faced at the same time the smiling
countenance of my Buzz, who looked into the door from the room of my
Uncle, the General Robert, slipped through that door and closed it
gently behind him.
"Safe on first base! The old boy of the bayonets has been called to
the Governor and he'll not be back before they both have luncheon sent
in to them. I have taken his letters and now I'm off. What did Bill
hand you?"
"Death and also destruction," I answered in an expletive often used by
my father in times of a catastrophe, and with those words I showed to
my Buzz the two long papers.
"Shoo, that's no big job. I looked over and verified this one myself
yesterday in ten minutes. Hello, this other one is in French. Just run
it through and if it is to tally, call it; and I'll hold this one. We
can do it in fifteen minutes. Go ahead from the top line across." And
my Buzz held the paper in his hand as he seated himself in readiness
upon the corner of my desk beside me.
"Oh, my Buzz, I have such a mortification that I cannot add one to
another of these long figures. When I place one number to another I
must use my fingers, and in this case you see that it is impossible."
Tears I did not allow in my eyes, but they were in my voice, and I
looked into the eyes of my Buzz with a great terror. "What is it that
I shall do? I am in disgrace."
"You complete edition of a kid, you, don't you know I can do it for
you? That is, if you know what all these kilo things stand for in
English. Do you?" As he spoke, that kind Buzz put his hand on my
shoulder with a nice rough shake.
"I do know from my governess, Madam Fournet, and I will write it all
down for you, my Buzz, for whom I feel so much gratitude for help," I
answered with quickness.
"Stow the gratitude and write 'em all out. It will take us about an
hour but it is good to keep calicoes waiting occasionally," he said,
and did thereupon seat himself beside the table and draw to himself
the two sheets of paper, while I quickly wrote out the table of French
weights and measurements translated into English.
I did very much enjoy that hour in which my Buzz labored with a pencil
and a great industry while I called to him the list of long figures
and then verified as he showed me the units upon the page in the
French language. He made jokes at me between workings while he
attended his cigarette and we, together, had much laughter.
"There are just three places where these figures disagree and I have
marked them carefully, L'Aiglon," he said as at last he laid down both
pieces of the paper. "These French specifications and figures that
floored you, represent the ideal mule in bulk and these United States
figures promise the same multitude in scrub. I thought as much. You
just run in there to Bill with them and then forget you ever saw them,
and we'll be on our way to the girls in ten minutes. Bobby, I mean it
when I say that men in your and my positions of trust just forget
facts and figures the minute we get out of sight of our chiefs. And we
forget the chiefs too, believe me. Now run along and come out to the
car on the same trot."
"Is it of honor not to tell to the Gouverneur Faulkner that you
assisted me in this task, my Buzz?" I asked of him with anxiety.
"No need to tell him--it's all in the same office and will come to me
for filing. Don't say anything that will bring on talk that keeps us
from Sue and the gang. Just run!" With which advice my kind Buzz
disappeared through the door into the office of my Uncle, the General
Robert, as I softly opened the door of the room of the Gouverneur
Faulkner and entered into his presence. And in that presence I found
also my Uncle, the General Robert, in a very grave consultation with
the Gouverneur Faulkner.
"The papers completed, Your Excellency," I said in a very low and meek
tone of my voice as I laid the papers beside him on the table and
prepared to take the running departure that my Buzz had commanded of
me.
"Bless my soul, are you here and at work, young man? I thought you
were asleep after all that gallivanting, and was just preparing to
blow you up out of bed over the telephone," exclaimed my Uncle, the
General Robert, with great fierceness of manner but also a great
pleasure of eyes at the sight of me in the character of such a nice
Secretary to the Gouverneur of Harpeth.
"Robert arrived five minutes after I did and ten minutes before you
came into the building, General," said that Gouverneur Faulkner, with
a twinkle of great enjoyment in his eyes. "He's done a day's work
before we have begun. Will you have your luncheon sent up from the
restaurant with ours, Robert? Just order the usual things for us and
any kind of frills you care for. Shall I say snails?"
"I thank Your Excellency deeply but I am engaged that I luncheon and
dance with Mr. Buzz Clendenning in his club in the country if I may be
given permission to go," I answered as I laid my fingers with
affection on the arm of my Uncle, the General Robert, as I stood
beside him.
"Nonsense, sir! You'll not join those jackanapes in their gambols
during business hours. Order yourself up a slice of pie and a glass of
buttermilk along with mine and sit down here to listen to matters of
business by which you can profit. Luncheon and dancing! No, pie and
business, I say, pie and business!" And the fierceness of my Uncle,
the General Robert, made me retire several feet away from him in
astonishment and in the direction of the Gouverneur Faulkner.
"Now, General, don't tie the boy down to pie and the company of two
musty old gentlemen like ourselves. He's earned a dance. You may go,
Robert, and I wish--I wish my heels were light enough to go with
yours," that kind Gouverneur said in my behalf.
"Light heels, light head! And I say he shall--" And another explosion
of fierceness was about to arrive from my Uncle, the General Robert,
when I said with great and real humility:
"It will be my great pleasure to sit at the feet of you and His
Excellency, which are not light for dancing, my Uncle Robert, and eat
a large piece of pie and also milk." I spoke with a sincerity, for
suddenly I knew that there would be nothing at that dance of girls in
the club of my Buzz that I would so desire as to sit near to that
Gouverneur Faulkner, in whose eyes came that sadness when he spoke of
the dance for which he had not the light feet, and eat with him and my
Uncle, the General Robert, a piece of that American pie of which I had
heard my father speak many times.
"Why, he means it, General," said the Gouverneur Faulkner with a great
softness in his eyes that answered the affection that was in mine that
pleaded for the pie and a place at his side. "Run, youngster, run,
before the General says another word. You are dismissed. Go!" And with
a great laugh the Gouverneur Faulkner rose, put his arm around my
shoulder and put me out of that room before my Uncle, the General
Robert, could begin any more words of remonstrance. And I ran away
from that door to my Buzz in the waiting car with both light and
reluctant feet.
The two hours that I spent with my Buzz at his club in the country
with what he called in front of their very faces, bunches of calico,
passed with such a rapidity that I felt I must grasp each minute and
remonstrate with them for their fleetness. That Mademoiselle Sue was
even much more lovely in her gray costume of golf with a tie the color
of the one worn by my Buzz, than she had been in her chiffon of the
dinner dance, and the beautiful Belle was much the same, with an added
gayety and charm, while I discovered a very sweet Kate Keith and a
Mildred Summers who was not of a great beauty but of many interesting
remarks which induced much laughing. With them were that Miles Menefee
whom my Buzz had recommended to me, and also several young gentlemen
of America whom I liked exceedingly. One Mr. Phillips Taylor took me
by my heart with a great force when, as we were all seated on the
steps of the wide porch eating the promised sandwich and consuming
breath for another dance in a very few minutes, he said to me:
"Say, Mr. Robert Carruthers, my mater wants to see you over in the
east card room directly. She says she had it on with your father in
their dancing school days and it was only by the intervention of some
sort of love ruckus that you and I are not brothers or maybe what
would be worse, brother and sister. If that had happened you would
have had to be it. I wouldn't. But that's not our quarrel."
"You couldn't have been a woman unless you had received a much better
finishing polish before being sent to bless the earth, Phil, dear,"
said that funny Mademoiselle Mildred Summers, and that Mr. Phillips
Taylor returned the insult by lifting her off of her feet and gliding
her halfway across the porch verandah in the beginning of one tango
dance to the music that was again to be heard from the hall within the
building.
"Mildred and Phil fight like aborigines, and their love for combat
will lead to matrimony in their early youth if they are not reconciled
to each other soon," said lovely Sue as she fitted herself into my
arms for our tango.
"After this dance with you will you lead me to that Madam Taylor, the
friend of my father, beautiful Sue?" I asked of her. "It makes happy
my heart to see one who loved him." And as I spoke, the longing for my
father that will ever be in my heart made a sadness in my voice and a
dimness in my eyes.
"I think everybody loved him just as we are all beginning to--to like
you, Bobby dear," said that sweet girl as she smiled up at me in a way
that sent the dimness in my eyes back to my heart.
"I am very grateful that you like me, lovely Sue," I said with great
humility. "I will endeavor to win and deserve more and more of that
liking, until it is with me as if I had been born in a house near to
yours, as is the case with my dear Buzz and also that funny Mildred."
"I couldn't like you any better, Bobby, if you had torn the hair off
of my doll's head or broken my slate a dozen times," she laughed at me
again as we slid together the last slide in the dance. "Now come over
and be introduced to Mrs. Taylor. You have only a few minutes, for you
and Buzz must both be back at the Capitol at two. I feel in honor
bound to the State to send you both back on time." And while she spoke
she led me across the hall of the clubhouse and into a room full of
ladies, who sat at card tables consuming very beautiful food while
also preparing to resume playing the cards.