passing a box of cigars. "We were prowling around the jewelry haunts,
Grace and I, seeing what she could flim-flam me into buying for her,
when we ran across this thing. She thought it was great. I looked it
over and saw that this bronze gentleman does not hold his club the way I
do, and was in favour of letting him wait for another owner. Then she
suggested that it would be a great scheme to buy it and give it to the
club. I thought it over a minute and decided that it might be a good
idea, and so I bought it, and here it is. Now you boys will have to
scrap it out among yourselves, and may the best one win."
"This is the finest trophy ever offered to the club," I said, "and on
behalf of the members I wish to thank you as donor and Miss Harding as
the instigator."
"I'll create enough trouble around here to work out any indebtedness you
fellows owe me for that gee-gaw," he laughed. "I've had an awful time
since you have been down town, Smith. I reckon I've ploughed up as much
turf as Jim Bishop did all last spring. Speaking of Bishop, did you know
we're invited over to his place Monday evening?"
"I had not heard of it," I said.
"Well, we are," he said. "There's going to be great doings day after
to-morrow night. Bishop's new red barn is finished, and a bunch of us
are going over to dinner and then participate in the dance. Let's go
down stairs and hunt up Grace and Carter and constitute the four of us a
committee on arrangements and invitation. Grace talked to Bishop more
than I did and she knows all about it."
We found Miss Harding, Miss Lawrence, LaHume, and Carter on the veranda,
and decided to enlarge the committee to six. Miss Harding said Mr.
Bishop intimated he should expect about a dozen of us.
"Well, let's see," figured Mr. Harding, and I felt in my bones he would
make a mess of it. "Get out your pencil, Smith, and take us down as I
give the names. There's Ma Harding and me, that's two; there's Carter
and Grace makes four; LaHume and his sweetheart makes six; then
there's----"
"Mr. LaHume and whom?" interrupted Miss Lawrence, her cheeks red and her
eyes snapping fire. The grin on LaHume's face died out.
"Why, LaHume and----"
"You've gone far enough," laughed Miss Harding. "Let me help you out,
papa. We will select the gentlemen first. Please take down this list,
Mr. Smith. Suppose we name Mr. LaHume, Mr. Carter, Mr. Marshall, Mr.
Chilvers, Mr. Smith, and Papa Harding. Then there's Miss Lawrence, Miss
Ross, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Chilvers, Mamma, and myself. That makes
twelve."
"Those were the ones I was going to name when you stopped me," declared
Mr. Harding, who pretended to be much puzzled, but who knew full well
what was the matter. He gave me a quiet nudge with his elbow, and then
went on to say that the twelve of us would dine with the Bishops at six
o'clock, and stay to the dance which would start as soon as it was dark.
It ought to be great fun.
I wish I knew if Miss Harding resented the coupling of her name with
Carter. I watched both of them closely, but neither gave a sign.
Chilvers tells me that Carter and Miss Harding have played several games
together during the past week, and I assured him that the fact possessed
not the slightest interest to me. Chilvers pretends to think it does,
and seems to take much delight in harping on that subject.
As a matter of curiosity I should like to know when and where Carter
first met the Hardings. Once or twice I have thrown out a hint to
Carter, but he has not said a word.
Carter is a good-looking chap, and I think he knows it. The fond mammas
here in the club consider him a catch. I am not exactly a pauper myself,
but I may be if this N. O. & G. deal goes against me.
I wonder how it would seem to be poor? I wonder if Miss Harding would
care to play golf with me if she knew I had to work for a living? I
wonder what I would work at?
I dreamed last night that N.O. & G. stock went down and down until it was
worth less than nothing, and that I had lost every dollar in the world
and owed several millions.
It was an awful dream. I was in jail for a time, and when they let me
out I did not have the car fare to get back to Woodvale. I walked all
the way, and was chased by dogs. When I got here, the steward presented
my bill, which amounted to several hundred dollars. I told him I could
not pay it, and he marked my name off the membership list. I met Carter
and several others and they would not speak to me. I was dying from
hunger, and looked longingly at the remnants of a steak left by
Chilvers, but one of the servants told me to move on.
Then the scene changed, as things move in dreams, and I was at work on
Bishop's farm. I was cutting and shocking corn, and the boss of the
hired help swore because I was so slow. My hands were bleeding from
scratches where the sharp edges of the bayonet-like blades had cut them,
and I was so hungry and tired that I was ready to lie down and die. My
wages were fifteen dollars a month, and every cent of it had been levied
against by my Wall Street creditors. Not until I was seventy years old
would any of the money I earned be coming to me. The other hired men
looked on me as a weakling, and laughed at the torn golf suit in which I
was clothed.
I was happy when I awoke and realised it was only a nightmare.
I raised the curtain so as to let in the cool air. The links were bathed
in a flood of moonlight. Half a mile away were Bishop's cornfields in
which the dreamland fiends had tortured me. It was not yet midnight, and
down the lane I made out the forms of Chilvers, Marshall, Lawson, and
other nighthawks. Chilvers was singing, the others coming in the chorus
of the last line, drawing it out to the full length and strength of a
parody of the old negro song:
"Where, oh where are the long, long drivers?
Where, oh where are the long, long drivers?;
Where, oh where are the long, long drivers?
'Way down yander in the corn field."
[Illustration: The dream]
ENTRY NO. X
THE TWO GLADIATORS
There was little doing in N.O. & G. stock on Monday or Tuesday. It
dropped off a point and then recovered. I told my brokers to pick up
10,000 shares at or below 65. I am confident it will strike that figure
before the end of the week.
It was nearly five o'clock before we started up the lane toward
Bishop's. We were delayed half an hour waiting for Marshall, but,
knowing his weakness, we fixed the time of departure half an hour sooner
than necessary.
If Marshall's hope for eternal salvation depended on applying at the
pearly gates at a specified time, he would spend eternity in the other
place on account of being thirty minutes late. Knowing this to be his
habit, we always provide against it. If the club house ever catches on
fire, we shall lose Marshall, and he is a splendid good fellow.
Marshall's wife informs me it took him thirty weeks to propose after he
had made up his mind to do so, and that after the wedding day was set it
was necessary to postpone the ceremony thirty days in order to permit
him to attend to some trifling business affairs. We call him "Thirty"
Marshall, and it takes him thirty seconds to smile in appreciation of
the jest. But he plays a good game of golf, with at least four
deliberate practise swings before each stroke at the ball.
Chilvers wanted to have a team hitched up and ride over in the club bus.
He said it tired him to walk. We vetoed that proposition, and Chilvers
stopped twice to rest on the half-mile jaunt to Bishop's.
Chilvers thinks nothing of playing twice around Woodvale, a distance of
not less than ten miles, but when in the city he takes a cab or a street
car when compelled to go a few blocks. When there is no ball ahead of
him he is the most fatigued man of my acquaintance, but he can stride
over golf links from daybreak until it is so dark you cannot see the
ball, and quit as fresh as when he started. There are others like
Chilvers.
I walked with Mrs. Harding. I had a good chance to walk with Miss
Harding, but wished to show Carter that it was a matter of indifference
to me. More than that, it occurred to me it was not a bad plan to become
better acquainted with Mrs. Harding.
The man who gets Mrs. Harding for a mother-in-law will be fortunate.
None of the thrusts and jibes of the alleged funny men will apply to her
as a mother-in-law.
One would not readily identify Mrs. Harding as the wife of a famous
railway magnate. Wealth certainly has not turned her motherly head. Of
course, she is a little woman. Huge men such as Harding invariably
select dolls of women for helpmates. She is round, smiling, pretty, and
thoughtful, and I like her immensely.
We were approaching the Bishop place. The orchard trees were covered
with fruit. Some of the tomatoes showed the red of their fat cheeks
through the green of their foliage. Miss Lawrence had started with
LaHume, but under some pretext left him and was with Carter and Miss
Harding, and I doubt if Carter was pleased with that evidence of his
popularity. LaHume walked with Miss Ross and talked and laughed, but I
could see he was angry.
It suddenly occurred to me that Miss Lawrence would probably meet
Bishop's hired man, Wallace, and I presume LaHume was thinking of the
same thing. It was apparent they had quarrelled over something.
Marshall and Chilvers were together, their wives trailing on behind, as
usual. The way these two married men neglect these lovely women makes me
angry every time I am out with them, but the ladies do not seem to care,
and I presume it is none of my business.
Harding walked with everybody, and was happy as a lark. He threw stones
at a telegraph pole, and was in ecstasy when a lucky shot shivered one
of the glass insulators.
"How was that for a shot, mother?" he shouted, as the glass came flying
down. "Hav'n't hit one of those since I was fourteen years old. Say, I
wish I was fourteen years old now, barefooted, and sitting on the bank
of that creek catching shiners."
"I wouldn't throw any more stones, Robert," Mrs. Harding said, laying
her hand on his arm and looking up to his happy face. "The last time you
threw stones you were lame for a week, and I had to rub you with
arnica."
"But think of the fun I had," he said, and then he went back and told
Marshall and Chilvers some yarn which must have been very amusing from
the way they laughed.
I had been praising the beauties of the country around Woodmere, and
asked Mrs. Harding how she liked the club house, and if she were
enjoying her summer there.
"I would enjoy it much better," she said, "if I did not know that I
should be home."
"I presume you feel that you are neglecting your social duties," I
ventured.
"Social fiddlesticks," she laughed. "I should be home canning tomatoes
and putting up fruit. We won't have a thing in the house fit to eat all
next winter."
"But the servants," I began. "The servants----"
"If you knew as much about housekeeping as you do about golf," she said,
"you would know that servants do not know how to preserve fruit. Last
year I put up more than two hundred cans, and unless I can drag Mr.
Harding away from here, it will be too late for everything except pears
and quinces, and he does not care much for either."
Think of the wife of a multi-millionaire standing over a hot kitchen
fire and preserving tomatoes, cherries, grapes, jams, jells, and all
that kind of thing! I did not exactly know how to sympathise with her.
"It is nice down here," she said, after a pause, "but there's nothing to
do."
"The drives are splendid," I said, "and I'm sure you would become
interested in golf or tennis if you took them up."
"I mean that there's no work to do," she said. "I nearly had a row with
my husband before he would let me darn his socks. He does not know it,
but I keep the maid out of our rooms so that I can do the work myself.
It's awful to sit around all day with nothing to do but read and do
fancy work. I hate fancy work. If you have any socks which need darning,
Mr. Smith, I wish you would let me have them."
We both laughed, but she was in earnest and made me promise I would turn
over to her any socks which show signs of wear. I shall keep them as a
memento.
That is the kind of a woman I should like for a mother-in-law.
And the more I see of Mr. Harding the better I like him. But I must
record the many things which happened that afternoon and evening at
Bishop's.
The fine old farmhouse is ideally located on a rising slope of ground.
It is surrounded with the most beautiful grove of horse-chestnut trees
in this section of the country.
The house is more than a hundred years old, and Bishop has the sense
not to attempt an improvement in its exterior architecture. When a boy I
spent most of my spare time in and around the Bishop house. Joe Bishop
and I were chums, but when I went away to college, Joe wandered out
West, and it is years since I have seen him. I have often thought that I
must have been an awful source of bother to the Bishops, but they never
seemed to mind it much. All of their children are grown up and married,
but here the old folks are, working away as hard as when I was a child.
I suppose James Bishop is about Mr. Harding's age, somewhere between
fifty and fifty-five. He in no way resembles the farmer of the cartoons.
He wears a stubby moustache, and looks more the prosperous horseman than
the typical farmer. He is a big man, a trifle taller than Mr. Harding,
but not so broad of shoulder. Either of them would tip the beam at 230
pounds.
Bishop was at the gate waiting for us, and back of him two good-natured
dogs bayed a noisy welcome.
"Come right in," he said, shaking hands with Harding. "If I'd known that
you had to walk I'd hitched up a rig and come after ye. This is Mrs.
Harding, I reckon," he said, grasping that lady's hand. "Glad to meet
ye, Mrs. Harding! I knowed that thar husband of your'n when he wasn't
bigger nor a pint of cider."
[Illustration: "At the gate waiting for us"]
"Robert has often spoken of you, Mr. Bishop," said that lady. "How is
Mrs. Bishop?"
"She's well; first-rate, thank ye. Come right in and we'll hunt her
up," he said, leading the way. "I suppose she's puttering around in the
kitchen."
I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Bishop through the window. She was hurriedly
shedding a large calico apron, and met us as we were on the steps of the
veranda. A woman trained in the conventionalities of society could not
have conducted herself better than did this American wife of an American
farmer, and I was proud of her as if she had been my own mother. She had
the rare tact of making her guests feel perfectly at home.
Bishop had disappeared, but soon returned with an enormous glass pitcher
and a tray of glasses.
"Here's some new sweet cider for the ladies," he said, pouring out a
glass and handing it to Mrs. Harding. "Pressed it out this afternoon,
and picked out the apples myself. Try some, Miss Harding. Here's a glass
for you, Miss----, blamed if I hav'n't forgot your name already,"
proffering a glass to Miss Lawrence, "but we don't mind a little thing
like that, do we."
"Indeed we do not," laughed Miss Lawrence.
"How about this?" demanded Chilvers. "What was that you said about cider
for the ladies? My friend Marshall is dying for a drink, and my throat
is as dusty as his boots. Do we walk two miles and then choke to death?
We don't want to lose Marshall like this."
"You hold your horses a minute," grinned Bishop. "The ladies like sweet
cider, God bless 'em, and I made this for them. If any of you fellows
would like to try some real cider, the best that ever was raised in this
State, come on and follow me. I reckon the ladies have seen all they
want to of you for a while. Come on; I'll show you some cider that is
cider."
He led us around the house until he came to a cellar door, which he
threw back and we followed him. When our eyes became accustomed to the
dim light we saw long rows of huge casks, mounted on frames so that the
spigots were eighteen inches from the floor. The air was deliciously
cool. It was permeated with the subtle odour of apple juice long
confined in wood. Films of cobwebs softened the sharp lines of the cask
heads and faintly gleamed between the rafters where the light struck
them.
"Here's cider that is cider!" declared Bishop, proudly tapping on the
heads of the great casks as he led the way into the darker recesses of
the cellar. "I reckon, Bob," he said to Harding, "that it's a long time
since you've had a chance to try a swig of real old Down East hard
cider."
"It's been a long time, Jim," admitted Harding. "How old is this?"
"I've put in a cask every year since I took the place," he replied, "and
that's more'n thirty years ago, and not a cask here but has cider in
it."
"Cider thirty years old!" exclaimed Chilvers. "You mean vinegar, don't
you?"
"I said cider, young man; an' when I say cider I mean cider," retorted
Bishop, rather indignantly. "It is no more vinegar than brandy's
vinegar, nor champagne's vinegar. Now, I don't reckon none of you,
barring my old friend John Harding, here, ever tasted a drop of real
hard cider. Oh, yes, Smith has, of course; but how about the rest of
ye?"
Carter, LaHume, Marshall, and Chilvers admitted that their idea of hard
cider was a beverage which had started to ferment.
Bishop placed his hand reverently on a blackened, time-charred cask. It
was evident he was as proud of that possession as others might be of an
authenticated Raphael.
"I don't tap this here very often," he said, "but in honour of this
occasion I'll let it run a bit. This here cider is fifty years old!"
He drew off a pint or so in a stone jug, and we went out into the light
to examine it. It was almost colourless, slightly amber in shade, if any
tint can describe it. I had seen that sacred cask when a boy, and I
recall now that Joe Bishop did not dare touch it, and there were few
things of which he was afraid.
We all solemnly sampled it from small glasses, which Bishop produced
from some mysterious hiding place.
"There is no taste to it," declared Chilvers. "It's smooth as oil, but
it has no flavour."
"Hasn't, eh?" smiled Bishop. "You just wait a minute and you'll get the
bouquet--as you wine experts call it. It's one of these coming tastes,
but when it hits you you cry for more."
It was as the farmer said. There came to our palates the subtle
gustatory perfume of apple blossoms. Within the old cask there had been
stored the fragrance and the spell of the orchard of half a century
agone. It was the wine of the apple; the favoured fruit of the gods.
"Is it supposed to be intoxicating?" asked Marshall. Bishop laughed
uproariously, and Harding joined in his merriment.
"My boy," Bishop said, "it's as intoxicating as the feel of your
sweetheart's cheek against your own, only it affects you in a different
way. I've known a man to fill up on that smooth-tastin' and innocent
lookin' stuff an' not come tew until he was on shipboard, an' half way
to Cape Horn. Under its influence the secretary of a peace society would
tackle the Japanese navy in a rowboat. From what I know about mythology
I'm sure Mars drank it regular."
Our host drew a generous allowance from a cask containing a more recent
vintage, and led the way from out the old cellar to seats beneath the
trees facing the smooth turf of an unused croquet ground.
LaHume wandered away in search of the ladies, whose laughter and chatter
from the near-by veranda proved they were cheerfully enduring his
absence. I caught a glimpse of Wallace as he drove the cows into the old
barn, and wondered if LaHume seriously considered the "hired man" as a
rival.
We filled our pipes and lay back in the comfortable seats, content to
listen to the music of the birds overhead, and follow aimlessly the
conversation between Bishop and Harding. The cider from the sacred cask
had bridged the years which separated them from boyhood days back in
Buckfield, Maine.
The old grindstone reminded Harding of an incident, to the telling of
which both contributed details. They told of swimming exploits; of how
they helped lock the school teacher out of the little red building which
seemed to them a prison; they told of blood-curdling feats of coasting
and of skating on thin ice, and of other things more or less distorted,
perhaps, when seen through the haze of forty years.
Then they told of the boys they had "licked," and of the boys who had
whipped them, also of the feud between the lads of Buckfield and Sumner
and the desperate encounters which resulted from it.
"Do you remember, Bob," asked Bishop, after a moment's pause, "of that
'rasslin' match we had on the floor of your dad's barn?"
"The time I got a black eye, and you lost part of your ear?" asked
Harding, his eyes brightening at thought of it.
"That's the time," declared Bishop. "I tore your clothes most to
pieces."
"I don't remember about that," responded the railroad magnate, "but I
do remember that I flopped you three times out of five."
"Three times outer nothin'!" exclaimed the farmer. "I put you down fair
and square three times running, Bob, and if you'll stop and think a
minute you'll recollect it."
"Recollect nothing!" defiantly laughed Harding. "You never saw the day
in your life, when you or any boy in Buckfield could put my shoulders to
the ground three times running. You're losing your memory, Jim."
"I did it all right."
"I say you didn't!"
"And I can do it again!"
"You can, eh?" shouted Harding, springing to his feet and pulling off
his coat. "We'll mighty quick see if you can! I'll tackle you right here
on this croquet ground!"
"Side holt, square holt, or catch-as-catch-can?" asked Bishop, casting
one anxious look towards the house.
"We always rassled catch-as-catch-can, and you know it," declared
Harding. "I suppose you think just because I do nothing but build
railroads and things that I've grown effeminate since you tackled me the
last time. Come on; I'll show you!"
"I'm afraid I'll hurt you, Bob," said Bishop, and I could see that he
honestly meant it. "I've been outer doors all my life, an' you've
been----"
"I suppose you think I've been in an incubator, don't ye?" snorted
Harding. "Don't weaken! Don't be a coward, Jim! There's the line; toe
it!" and he marked a crease in the soft turf.
"You bet I'll toe it!" growled the now irate farmer. "And don't whimper
if I break a bone or two when I flop ye!"
As Bishop threw his cap to the ground and rushed toward the defiant
millionaire Carter saw fit to interfere.
"Don't do this," he protested, jumping between them. "One of you will
get hurt! It's dangerous for men of your age to wrestle!"
Both of them reached out and brushed Carter away, and the next instant
they were at it.
Bishop ducked and got an underhold, and I was sure Harding would go
down, but he braced himself with his huge legs, and with the strength of
a giant broke the clasp of his opponent's arms. It takes skill as well
as muscle to do this, and I saw at a glance that Harding had not
forgotten the tricks of his boyhood. As Bishop spun half-way around the
other caught him at a disadvantage, raised him clear from the turf and
dashed him down, falling with all his weight upon him.
It was as clean and quick a fall as I have seen, but for a second my
heart stood still, fearing Bishop's neck had been broken. He gasped once
or twice, and then I heard a muffled laugh.
"Let me up, Bob; that's one for you!" he said, and both struggled to
their feet. There was a rent in the right knee of Harding's trousers,
and his shirt was a sight, but he neither knew of this nor would have
cared for it.
"Not quite so soft and easy as you thought I was eh, Jim?" he panted,
extending his hand. "You got the holt all right, but you wasn't quick
enough."
"I held you too cheap that time," admitted Bishop, rather sheepishly,
throwing away a pair of ruined suspenders, "but I'll get you this time.
Come on, Bob!"
"You referee this match, Smith!" said Harding, standing on guard. "You
know the rules. No fall unless both shoulders and one hip is down."
Misfortune had taught Bishop caution. I could see he feared Harding's
enormous strength and that he aimed to wind him if possible. He managed
to elude the grasp of his antagonist for probably a minute, and more by
luck than skill fell on top when the end of the clinch came. But Harding
was not down by any means, and there then ensued a struggle which made
me oblivious to all surroundings.
Though I was the referee I was "rooting" for Harding, and so was Carter,
while Marshall and Chilvers were giving mental and vocal encouragement
to Bishop. I do not suppose any of us realised we were saying a word.
First Harding would have a slight advantage, and then the tide would
turn in favour of Bishop. The latter was more agile, but the former
outclassed him in power. They writhed along that croquet ground like two
gigantic tumble-bugs locked in a life and death struggle. Neither said a
word, and both were absolutely fair in attack and defense. As the
struggle continued it seemed to me that Harding was weakening, but he
told me later he was merely resting for the effort which would insure
him victory.