ERMINIE FUMBLES THE GAME
TWO weeks later came the annual Junior picnic. It was a variation this
year in being set for evening. They had chartered a steamer and were to
stop at one of the wildest points on A-mo-té Island.
There was merely a little clearing, with one or two rustic pavilions for
shelter against rain, and the dancing platform. This last was rated the
best out-of-doors dancing floor anywhere around the city or its suburbs,
and was correspondingly popular with young people.
Billy started off in fine spirits with a basket his mother had prepared,
and a proud feeling that he would not be ashamed to open it in the
presence of any girl. He had begged Erminie to let him bring the
luncheon for the two of them; and when he met her as agreed at the
trolley line transfer point, care-free, erect and strong, his eyes
shining with anticipation, it was little wonder that he saw an answering
look of pleasure and pride in her eyes. He was a young man any girl
might feel it a privilege to know; better still, older and deeper-seeing
ones, mothers, would turn to observe him and wish their own sons might
be like him.
“On time, Erminie!” he greeted gayly as he helped her from the car
almost before it came to a stop. “Good girl!”
“Isn’t it perfect?” She met his frank gaze cordially. “Just warm enough,
and the moon is full.”
The week had been a hard one for her. She had struggled to hold the
goodwill of Jim Barney without allowing him the familiarities he had
once enjoyed; familiarities she would allow no boy after knowing Billy.
She was anxious that Billy’s side in both school and playground politics
should win, but she knew the only way she could help him was to remain
good friends with Jim.
She used her utmost subtlety to exact from him a pledge of civility
toward Billy and Hector, and found this was the hardest bit of
management she had ever undertaken. The Kid was as keen as she was, and
had a half womanish intuition that matched her own. And Erminie could no
longer juggle with the truth as formerly; it hurt her. When taxed with
undue interest in Billy, her denials did not ring true; and her witty
sallies ridiculing Jim were half-hearted. Had he been less in love, or
Erminie less than altogether beautiful and charming, she would have made
no impression.
Billy had looked forward to this day as one of reckoning. With this in
view he had insisted that Erminie go to the picnic with him openly.
“Don’t you frame up to go with Jim,” he had whispered days before, in a
moment of waiting in the rain for a car at the school corner; “I won’t
stand for it this time; I’ve things to say to you.”
“Oh! It’s good to be with you once more, just us two,” she said, as they
went aboard, and forward to the very peak of the bow of the steamer.
But there was too much hilarity for any two, however absorbed, to remain
unnoticed.
“Oh, here you are, Fishie!” one jolly girl shouted, and bore down on
them, dragging in her train others with boys following. “We don’t need
spoons at this picnic! Come on, you—the boys are going to get the band
to play so we can dance.” She pulled Erminie to her feet; and shortly
two or three dozen couple were whirling around on the crowded deck.
Erminie and Billy took a turn or two and dropped out, preferring to wait
for the ampler room and smoother floor of the pavilion. Yet when they
sought their places forward again, and the music and preoccupation of
the dancers isolated them almost as much as walls would have done,
neither of them could speak of what was uppermost in both minds. The
hour and the surroundings were not propitious.
Billy fretted inwardly. There was much to say. She must know all his
plans; all he had thought and dreamed since that evening—was it only a
few days ago?—in the park, that evening that had changed all his life.
Still these were serious matters, even sacred. He could not bring
himself to mention them here, where unsympathetic eyes might read his
emotions in his face; he was not an adept at hiding them as Erminie was.
When the hour’s trip was nearly over she gave him a quick nudge with her
arm. “There’s Jim!” She looked down the stairway.
“Where? I thought you said he wasn’t coming.”
“So I did. He said he had work to do.”
“Work!” Billy’s tone held a fine scorn. “Did you think any one would
stay away for that? I wouldn’t. I’ve worked in our garden till nearly
ten o’clock some of the nights this week, so I might feel free for
to-day. I didn’t know till yesterday it was changed to an evening
affair.”
But Erminie was not heeding. “Billy, you must not let Jim see—”
“Jim be hanged! You’ve put me off for days with that plea. I’m not
afraid of the Kid, I—”
“Oh, Billy! Won’t you listen—”
“Not to one word. I brought you to this picnic; I have the lunch, and
you’re going to sit it out with me while we eat, and dance with me, and
go home—”
While he spoke, Jim and Walter Buckman came up from the lower deck, in
animated discussion of some matter that pleased them both. The dancers
had stopped, and nearly all were standing in groups at the rail,
watching the shore come nearer as the puffing craft approached the
landing.
“Oh, you Fishie!” Jim sang out on seeing her. “You’re going to feed with
Buck and me; we’ve got the grub and—”
Billy rose, and every vestige of his light good humor faded; was
replaced by a sternness Jim had never seen. “Miss Fisher has consented
to be my partner for the evening; and I also have the—the grub.” Erminie
herself could not have edged a sarcasm with finer scorn than Billy threw
into his last word.
Jim eyed him in surprise for a second, then broke out in a loud voice,
“Well, Miss Fisher belongs to—” His eyes burned red and his hands
clenched involuntarily.
His companion though not as bright was more prudent than Jim; also he
was selfish; he wanted the presidency, and knew that open hostility in
any direction endangered his chances. “Come off, Kid! You always kick in
for fair play.” And ingratiatingly bowing to Erminie, “Probably Miss
Fisher was engaged to Mr. Bennett first.”
“Mr. Bennett nothing! By jiminy!—”
But Erminie interrupted glibly. “I’ve expected to come to this picnic
with Billy ever since I knew there was to be one.”
“But I told you—”
She laughed nervously. “Jim Barney, you’ve told me a good many things
lately; but if you are Boss of the Fifth Avenue High you’re not my
boss.”
The words were not out of her mouth before she knew that all of her plot
and subterfuge of the past weeks was lost. Daily her repugnance to Jim
and his methods had been growing. She had tolerated, wheedled him, only
that it might be easier for Billy till the end of the term. Now, with
that day only two weeks off, she had in a moment undone all she had
gained.
Yet even in that instant of dismay she was filled with relief. She need
dissemble no more. She could be straight with Billy and fight Jim in the
open. She would tell Bess Carter a little—what she needed to tell, join
the Progressives, and be with those she believed were doing well.
Jim was angry through and through, and too astonished to speak
immediately; and in the moment of his hesitancy Walter Buckman led him
away.
“Billy! Billy!” Erminie whispered as she started up. “You don’t know
what an awful thing I’ve done!”
“You’ve done what I wished you would do long ago, and I’ll stand for
whatever happens.” A proud light shone in his eye that she saw others
besides herself could read.
“I’m going to speak to Bess Carter,—tell her that I’ll work with her.
Anyway it will be better if I’m not seen with you till the Kid’s mad
cools off.”
She started across the deck but he detained her. “Erminie! Did you
promise Jim you’d come—come here with—”
“No, Billy, he took it for granted. I laughed and let it go so, for that
was my game then. But—oh, Billy! I’ve fumbled everything! And it’s going
to be hard for you when I was trying to make it—”
“Never mind me. I can fight my own battles.”
The steamer bumped the wharf, lurching the standing ones against one
another; and the merry confusion of disembarking drove all serious
matters to cover of silence. The few teachers, making as little as
possible of their duties as chaperones, let the young people manage
things for themselves.
Dinner was the first consideration; and as no one there knew quite so
much about coffee as Reginald Steele and Billy, that was their job,
which occupied them wholly, together with Bess Carter, skilled in
cookery through use of the tiny rock fireplace on the bank of Runa Creek
in “good old California.”
Erminie, who had no more idea of how to make coffee for three hundred
than she had concerning heavenly ambrosia, hovered close to the three,
anxious to tell Bess of her change of heart, yet more anxious to keep
away from Jim Barney, and most of all to be near Billy, who meant
strength and deliverance to her.
It was early June and the sun still high at seven o’clock, when they
began dinner. In groups of several, with perhaps fifty sitting in
comfort at the long table in the bark-roofed pavilion, but oftenest in
couples seated apart in the many nooks of the small clearing, they
chattered and feasted, punctuating the meal with many noisy pranks and
repeated yells.
Erminie had expected this to be the moment for the quiet talk with
Billy. No less had he looked forward to it; but the coffee pots were an
unanticipated tyranny. The making did not end the care. The pots were
not large enough, and more water had to be heated, and a second lot made
for the thirsty crowd. Billy had barely spread his cloth, with Erminie’s
help laid out the contents of his attractive basket, when the call came;
and his time till all the rest were satisfied, was spent in running back
and forth, bolting sandwiches on the way.
And so it happened that dinner was over and the fiddlers already calling
eager feet, while Billy was finishing his meal.
“It’s too bad, Billy! You let every one impose on you.”
“No matter. You shall be next. Impose on me as much as you like. Is it
dancing?”
“Nothing doing. You like that as well as I do.”
“Let’s try it then. You can cook up something later in the imposition
line.”
They piled the remnants of the dainty meal into the basket and went to
the pavilion.
The music, the perfect evening, all conditions were auspicious for
restless young creatures who inevitably love the motion and harmony of
dancing; and Erminie and Billy enjoyed it more than most people do, for
they were both musical and danced well.
It was an “informal” to-night, with no programmes, each making
engagements for but two or three dances ahead. Billy wished he did not
have to dance with any one but Erminie; indeed he did sit out most of
the dances he did not have with her; sat and watched her as she whirled
by him, scarcely touching the floor, it seemed. In the earlier evening
he thought he wanted nothing else but the chance to take her away by
herself and talk; but the music and the motion intoxicated both of them,
and when he held her in his arms, in their favorite dance, each movement
so attuned that they felt as one being, he wished they might glide on
and on, with no thought of time.
But musicians tire if dancers do not; and when at last the best dance of
all stopped abruptly he drew her away. The boys had gone variously
dressed, and as the evening was warm many of them, among others Billy,
had laid aside their coats.
“You must get your coat, Billy,” Erminie warned as they went out of the
pavilion. “Mine too. I hung them both on that big cedar. I’ll walk on.”
When he went to find them he noticed some one start hastily away from
the tree and slip around the other side. He wondered a little why any
one should be there instead of dancing, but he was too absorbed with
Erminie to think long of anything else; and he ran back to her, putting
on his coat as he went.
“Is it all right?” he asked as he helped her on with hers.
“Yes. Did you think it had changed color?”
“I might have taken the wrong one, you know.”
“Billy, let’s go round by those trees to a place I know that’s
beautiful,—high above the water.”
“That goes. Is it far? We mustn’t be late to the boat.”
“Only a little way, a block or two. We can hear the whistle and run.”
They followed a smooth trail to a jutting point where the underbrush had
been cut and a rustic seat placed to catch the full beauty of the view.
The warm fragrance of the evening, the pulsing melodies that floated to
them softened by distance and foliage, the brilliant moon silvering the
broad lake that splashed softly at their feet, the ghostly mountain in
the south looming into the sky till it seemed a white pathway right into
heaven itself,—it is little wonder that they sat silent, entranced for a
moment, each thrilled by the spell of the night.
Erminie was the first to speak. “Billy, I can’t tell you how sorry I am
for that break.”
“I’m glad.”
“It’s something terrible. Jim’ll make you pay for it,—me too, for he
isn’t above hurting a girl; but I deserve it, and—”
Billy turned, quickly moving closer. “Erminie, you must not worry about
this thing any longer. He’ll have to reckon with me on more than one
count. I—hoped to get through the year without a clash, but I see it’s
bound to come; when it does I’ll get in your score too.”
“No, no, Billy! You mustn’t fight him! He’ll say things, do things that
will lose Hector the vote because you are his cousin. He’ll—” She broke
off suddenly and covered her face with her hands.
Billy reached over and drew one hand down in his own. “Erminie!” His
voice was tender. “I can’t let you worry about this. You must tell me
just why you are afraid of him, so I won’t be doing things in the dark.”
She lifted her face to the moonlight and sighed; and Billy thought she
had never been so lovely, never so womanly. “Oh, Billy!” There was a
catch in her voice that made his hand close quickly on hers. “Before I
knew you I thought it great fun to be engaged to several boys at
once—Jim was one of them. It was like a game, and—”
“Yes?” he prompted, and did not know that his grasp of her hand
loosened.
“I’m ashamed to tell about it now, but I thought it all right then. I
used to like to see how the different ones did it, to see if I could
catch the difficult ones—” She stopped again, divining Billy’s
disapprobation; but when he did not speak she continued:
“I thought it fun to watch them get jealous of each other; to plan to
keep them apart or let them meet, whichever I was in the mood for at the
time.”
“What did your mother say? Did she know?” Billy asked after an instant
of silence.
“Oh, yes. I used to tell her a lot. It was about all the pleasure she
had,—poor ma! Her life’s awfully dull. Hearing about my courting affairs
keeps her sort of waked up.”
“Did she approve?”
Erminie laughed at his solemn tone. “Sure. She said it was all good
practice; would teach me how to land big game when it came my way.”
Another and a longer silence awed the girl. Billy had no idea that the
seconds were ticking by interminably to her; he was trying to place in
his mind the Erminie just revealed to him. Her measure of life was so
different from any he knew; her mother so—so impossible as a mother,
repelled him as a travesty on womanhood. Yet recalling her from his few
glimpses he could not help a feeling of pity mingling with his
condemnation.
It was natural, though he could not have told why, that he should blame
Erminie’s mother, her father, any one and every one rather than herself.
She was near him. She was beautiful,—to-night with the calm moon
glorifying, etherealizing her face, more than ever beautiful,—and she
could not help doing things differently from—his sister, for instance,
who had been so differently reared.
“Billy! Why don’t you talk to me? Don’t look off at nothing as if I were
not on earth! I’m not like that now. I know you, and—”
He took her hand again in the closer clasp, and she saw a new look in
his face, the look his mother saw when they discussed together the deep
things of life. “Erminie, I have been trying to see your life as you see
it. You know my mother is—she talks things over with me—the things a
chap needs to know before he starts out for himself; and I have come to
see pretty deep into—into the sort of thing that’s between us,
engagements and that; what it means to one’s whole life, what it means
to the race.”
“Why, Billy! Billy! Does your mother talk to you of such things?”
He smiled innocently at her vehemence. “Why not? My father is dead; who
would tell me things if she didn’t?”
She looked out over the shimmering moon-track on the water. “I—I never
heard of such a thing.”
“Do you think the Creator makes anything bad?”
“Why—why I suppose not,” she returned, wonderingly.
“That’s the point; He doesn’t. It’s only us that make wrong out of his
creations.”
A shrill whistle startled them.
“Billy! It can’t be time to go!” She started up.
“That must be the first whistle.” He looked at his watch and calmly
pulled her back to the seat. “It’s only ten; ten-thirty is leaving time.
If we start ten minutes before we’ll have scads of time.” He dropped his
watch back into his coat pocket.
“That’s no place to carry a watch,” she chaffed as they readjusted
themselves.
“Yes, it is, for I’m such a kid for dropping it when I bend over
anything, a fire for instance. And then my coat is always off.”
They talked on, but of other matters. Both were relieved at the
interruption of the tense moment, yet Erminie had a regret she could not
understand. More than ever Billy attracted her because of his larger,
deeper knowledge. He knew the forbidden things, things she only
whispered about, yet on his lips they had a dignity, a purity unbounded.
He never made silly jokes where reverence was due, yet never went out of
his way to avoid anything that came in the natural course of
conversation. He was the only one she knew who did this; and she wished
she, too, might have such an open mind toward life.
“Billy! The music has stopped!” She rose hastily and started down the
path.
“Oh, I guess it’s only the wait between dances.” But he was suddenly
conscious that it had been long, and hurried after her.
They turned the point where the pavilion came to view to see it looming
dark and deserted. From the wharf the noise of embarking came warningly.
“Gee! They’re going!” Billy caught her hand and ran with her down the
steep hill.
But they were too late. When first they started, the steamer was setting
off. Now she was well out in the lake, headed northward.
Billy called at the top of his voice; and Erminie added her frantic
shriek to his; but the band was playing, the young people shouting and
“jollying,” and no one heard. The two could hear sudden gusts of
laughter rising above the music, and after that the steady rhythm and
beat of the instruments.
“Oh, Billy, it’s no use!” Erminie sobbed, as the boat grew smaller and
smaller on the gray water.
“I guess we’re in for a night of it on a desert island.”
They faced each other there in the moonlight, silent, wondering,
perplexed.
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