THE CORNFIELD ARISTOCRAT
It was an innocent little note from Jeff Saxton; a polite, humble little
note; it said that Jeff had a card to the Astoria Club, and wouldn't
Milt please have lunch with him? But Milt dropped it on the table, and
he walked round it as though it were a dictagraph which he'd discovered
in the table drawer after happy, happy, hidden hours at counterfeiting.
It seemed more dangerous to refuse than to go. He browned the celebrated
new shoes; he pressed the distinguished new trousers, with a light and
quite unsatisfactory flatiron; he re-re-retied his best spotted blue
bow--it persisted in having the top flaps too short, but the retying
gave him spiritual strength--and he modestly clumped into the aloof
brick portal of the Astoria Club on time.
He had never been in a club before.
He looked at the red tiled floor of the entrance hall; he stared through
the hall into an immense lounge with the largest and softest chairs in
the world, with oil portraits of distinguished old bucks, and ninety per
cent. of the wealth and power of Seattle pulling its several mustaches,
reading the P.I., and ignoring the lone intruder out in the hall.
A small Zulu in blue tights and brass buttons glared at Milt; and a
large, soft, suave, insulting young man demanded, "Yes, sir?"
"Mr. G-g-geoffrey Saxton?" ventured Milt.
"Not in, sir." The "sir" sounded like "And you know it." The flaming
guardian retired behind a narrow section of a bookkeeper's desk and
ignored him.
"I'm to meet him for lunch," Milt forlornly persisted.
The young man looked up, hurt and annoyed at finding that the person was
still to be dealt with.
"If you will wait in there?" he groaned.
Milt sat in there, which was a small blue tapestry room with hard chairs
intended to discourage bill-collectors. He turned his hat round and
round and round, till he saw Jeff Saxton, slim and straight and hard as
the stick hooked over his arm, sailing into the hall. He plunged out
after him, took refuge with him from the still unconvinced inspection of
the hall-man. For twenty seconds, he loved Jeff Saxton.
And Jeff seemed to adore him in turn. He solicitously led Milt to the
hat-checking counter. He showed Milt the lounge and the billiard room,
through which Milt crept with erect shoulders and easy eyes and a heart
simply paralyzed with fear that one of these grizzled clubmen with
clipped mustaches would look at him. He coaxed Milt into a grill that
was a cross between the Chinese throne-room and a Viennese Weinstube,
and he implored his friend Milt to do him the favor of trying the "very
fair" English mutton chops and potatoes _au gratin_.
"I did want to see you again before we go East, Daggett," he said
pleasantly.
"Th-thanks. When do you go?"
"I'm trying to get Miss Boltwood to start soon now. The season is
opening in the East. She does like your fine sturdy West, as I do, but
still, when we think of the exciting new shows opening, and the dances,
and the touch with the great world---- Oh, it does make one eager to get
back."
"That's so," risked Milt.
"We, uh---- Daggett---- In fact, I'm going to call you Milt, as Claire
does. You don't know what a pleasure it has been to have encountered
you. There's a fine keen courage about you Western chaps that makes a
cautious old fogy like me envious. I shall remember meeting you with a
great deal of pleasure."
"Th-thanks. Been pleasure meet you."
"And I know Claire will, too."
Milt felt that he was being dealt with foully. He wanted to object to
Saxton's acting as agent for Claire as incompetent, irrelevant,
immaterial, and no foundation laid. But he could not see just where he
was being led, and with Saxton glowing at him as warmly and greasily as
the mutton chops, Milt could only smile wanly, and reflectively feel
the table leg to see if it was loose enough to jerk out in case of need.
Saxton was being optimistic:
"In fact, Claire and I both hope that some day when you've finished your
engineering course, we'll see you in the East. I wonder---- As I say, my
dear fellow, I've taken the greatest fancy to you, and I do hope you
won't think I'm too intimate if I say that I imagine that even in your
charming friendship with Miss Boltwood, you've probably never learned
what important people the Boltwoods are. I thought I'd tell you so that
you could realize the privilege both you and I have in knowing them.
Henry B. is--while not a man of any enormous wealth--regarded as one of
the keenest intellects in New York wholesale circles. But beyond that,
he is a scholar, and a man of the broadest interests. Of course the
Boltwoods are too modest to speak of it, but he was chiefly instrumental
in the establishment of the famous Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. And his
ancestors clear through--his father was a federal judge, and his
mother's brother was a general in the Civil War, and afterwards an
ambassador. So you can guess something of the position Claire holds in
that fine, quiet, solid old Brooklyn set. Henry Ward Beecher himself was
complimented at being asked to dine with the Boltwoods of his day,
and----"
No, the table leg wouldn't come loose, so it was only verbally that the
suddenly recovered Milt attacked:
"Certainly is nice to have one of those old families. It's something
like---- As you say, you and I have gotten pretty well acquainted along
the line, so I guess I can say it to you---- My father and his folks
came from that same kind of family. Father's dad was a judge, back in
Maine, and in the war, grand-dad was quite friendly with Grant."
This tribute of Milt to his grandsire was loyal but inaccurate. Judge
Daggett, who wasn't a judge at all, but a J. P., had seen General Grant
only once, and at the time the judge had been in company with all the
other privates in the Fourteenth Maine.
"Dad was a pioneer. He was a doctor. He had to give up all this
easy-going stuff in order to help open up the West to civilization, but
I guess it was worth it. He used to do the hardest kind of operations,
on kitchen tables, with his driver giving the chloroform. I'm mighty
proud of him. As you say, it's kind of what you might call inspiring to
belong to the old Pilgrim aristocracy."
Never before had Milt claimed relation to a group regarding which his
only knowledge was the information derived from the red school-history
to the effect that they all carried blunderbusses, put people in the
stocks for whistling, and frequently said, "Why don't you speak for
yourself, John?" But he had made his boast with a clear eye and a
pleasant, superior, calm smile.
"Oh! Very interesting," grunted Saxton.
"Would you like to see grandfather's daguerreotype?"
"Oh, yes, yes, uh, thanks, that would be very interesting---- Do let me
see it, when---- Uh, as I was saying, Claire doubtless has a tremendous
social career before her. So many people expecting her to marry well. Of
course she has a rather unusual combination of charm and intelligence
and---- In fact I think we may both be glad that----"
"Yes. That's right. And the best thing about her is the way she can
shake off all the social stuff and go camping and be a regular human
being," Milt caressed.
"Um, uh, no doubt, no doubt, though---- Of course, though, that isn't an
inherent part of her. I fancy she's been rather tired by this long trip,
poor child. Of course she isn't very strong."
"That's right. Real pluck. And of course she'll get stronger by hiking.
You've never seen her bucking a dangerous hill--I kind of feel that a
person who hasn't seen her in the wilds doesn't know her."
"I don't want to be contradictory, old man, but I feel on the other hand
that no one who has failed to see her at the Junior League Dances, in a
Poiret frock, can know her! Come, come! Don't know how we drifted into
this chorus of praise of Claire! What I wanted to ask was your opinion
of the Pierce-Arrow. I'm thinking of buying one. Do you think that----"
All the way home Milt exulted, "I put it all over him. I wasn't scared
by the 'Don't butt into the aristocracy, my young friend' stuff. I lied
handsome. But---- Darn it, now I'll have to live up to my New England
aristocracy.... Wonder if my grand-dad's dad was a hired man or a
wood-sawyer?... Ne' mine; I'm Daggett of Daggett from now on." He
bounded up to his room vaingloriously remarking, "I'm there with the
ancestors. I was brought up in the handsome city of Schoenstrom, which
was founded by a colony of Vermont Yankees, headed by Herman Skumautz. I
was never allowed to play with the Dutch kids, and----" He opened the
door. "--the Schoenstrom minister taught me Greek and was my bosom
frien'----"
He stopped with his heart in his ankles. Lolling on the bed, grinning,
waving a cigarette, was Bill McGolwey, proprietor of the Old Home Lunch,
of Schoenstrom, Minnesota.
"Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhy where the heck did you come from?"
stammered the deposed aristocrat to his bosom friend Bill.
"You old lemon-pie-faced, lollygagging, flap-footed, crab-nosed son of
misery, gee, but it's good to see you, Milt!"
Bill was off the bed, wringing Milt's hand with simple joy, with perfect
faith that in finding his friend all the troubles of life were over. And
Milt was gloomily discovering the art of diplomacy. Bill was his friend,
yes, but----
It was hard enough to carry his own self.
He pictured Jeff Saxton leering at the door, and while he pounded Bill's
shoulder, and called him the name which, west of Chicago, is the token
of hatred and of extreme gladness at meeting, he discovered that some
one had stolen his stomach and left a piece of ice in its place.
They settled down on bed and chair, Bill's ears red with joy, while Milt
demanded:
"How the deuce did you get here?"
"Well, tell you, old hoss. Schoenstrom got so darn lonely after you
left, and when Ben and Heinie got your address and bought the garage,
think's I, lez go off on a little bum."
Milt was realizing--and hating himself for realizing--that Bill's face
was dirty, his hair linty, the bottoms of his trousers frayed masses of
mud, while Bill chuckled:
"I figured out maybe I could get a job here in a restaurant, and you and
me could room together. I sold out my good will in the Old Home Lunch
for a hundred bucks. I was going to travel swell, riding the cushions.
But Pete Swanson wanted me to go down to the Cities first, and we run
into some pretty swift travelers in Minneapolis, and a couple of
girls--saaaaaaay, kid, some class!"
Bill winked, and Milt--Milt was rather sick. He knew Bill's conception
of class in young women. Was this the fellow he had liked so well? These
the ideas which a few months ago he had taken as natural and extremely
amusing?
"And I got held up in an alley off Washington Avenue, and they got the
last twenty bones off'n me, and I was flatter 'n a pancake. So I says
'ish kabibble,' and I sneaks onto the blind baggage, and bums my way
West. You'd 'a' died laughing to seen me throwing my feet for grub. Oh,
I'm some panhandler! There was one _Frau_ sicked her dog onto me, and I
kicked him in the jaw and---- Oh, it was one swell hike."
Milt was trying to ignore the voice that was raging, "And now he expects
to live on me, after throwing his own money away. The waster! The hobo!
He'll expect to meet Claire---- I'd kill him before I'd let him soil her
by looking at her. Him and his classy girls!" Milt tried to hear only
the other inner voice, which informed him, "He looks at you so
trustingly. He'd give you his shirt, if you needed it--and he wouldn't
make you ask for it!"
Milt tried to be hearty: "What're you going to do, old kid?"
"Well, the first thing I'm going to do is to borrow ten iron-men and a
pair of pants."
"You bet! Here she is. Haven't got any extra pants. Tell you: Here's
another five, and you can get the pants at the store in the next block,
this side of the street. Hustle along now and get 'em!" He chuckled at
Bill; he patted his arm; he sought to hurry him out.... He had to be
alone, to think.
But Bill kissed the fifteen dollars, carelessly rammed it into his
pocket, crawled back on the bed, yawned, "What's the rush? Gosh, I'm
sleepy. Say, Milt, whadyuh think of me and you starting a lunch-room
here together? You got enough money out of the garage----"
"Oh no, noooo, gee, I'd like to, Bill, but you see, well, I've got to
hold onto what little I've got so I can get through engineering school."
"Sure, but you could cash in on a restaurant--you could work evenings in
the dump, and there'd be a lot of city sports hanging around, and we'd
have the time of our lives."
"No, I---- I study, evenings. And I---- The fact is, Bill, I've met a
lot of nice fellows at the university and I kind of go around with
them."
"Aw, how d'you get that way? Rats, you don't want to go tagging after
them Willy-boys. Damn dirty snobs. And the girls are worse. I tell you,
Milt, these hoop-te-doodle society Janes may look all right to hicks
like us, but on the side they raise more hell than any milliner's
trimmer from Chi that ever vamped a rube burg."
"What do you know about them?"
"Now don't get sore. I'm telling you. I don't like to see any friend of
mine make a fool of himself hanging around with a bunch that despises
him because he ain't rich, that's all. Met any of the high-toned
skirts?"
"Yes--I--_have_!"
"Trot 'em up and lemme give 'em the once-over."
"We--we'll see about it. Now I got to go to a mathematics recitation,
Bill. You make yourself comfortable, and I'll be back at five."
Milt did not have to go to a recitation. He marched out with briskness
in his step, and a book under his arm; but when he reached the corner,
the briskness proved to be spurious, and the mathematics book proved to
be William Rose Benet's _Merchants of Cathay_, which Claire had given
him in the Yellowstone, and which he had rescued from the wrecked bug.
He stood staring at it. He opened it with unhappy tenderness. He had
been snatched from the world of beautiful words and serene dignity, of
soaring mountains and companionship with Claire in the radiant morning,
back to the mud and dust of Schoenstrom, from the opera to "city sports"
in a lunch-room! He hated Bill McGolwey and his sneering assumption that
Milt belonged in the filth with him. And he hated himself for not being
enough of a genius to combine Bill McGolwey and Claire Boltwood. But not
once, in his maelstrom of worry on that street corner, did he expect
Claire to like Bill. Through all his youthful agonizing, he had enough
common sense to know that though Claire might conquer a mountain pass,
she could never be equal to the social demands of Schoenstrom and Bill
McGolwey.
He wandered for an hour and came back to find that, in a "dry" city
which he had never seen before, the crafty Bill had obtained a quart of
Bourbon, and was in a state of unsteady beatitude. He wanted, he
announced, to dance.
Milt got him into the community bathtub, and soused him under, but
Bill's wet body was slippery, and Bill's merry soul was all for
frolicsome gamboling, and he slid out of Milt's grasp, he sloshed around
in the tub, he sprinkled Milt's sacred good suit with soapy water, and
escaped, and in the costume of Adam he danced orientally in Milt's room,
till he was seized with sleepiness and cosmic grief, and retired to
Milt's bed in tears and nothing else.
The room dimmed, grew dark. The street lamps outside sent a wan, wavery
gleam into the room. Evening crowds went by, and in a motion-picture
theater a banging piano struck up. Bill breathed in choking snorts. Milt
sat unmoving, feeling very old, very tired, too dumbly unhappy to be
frightened of the dreadful coming hour when Claire and Jeff should hear
of Bill, and discover Milt's real world.
He was not so romantically loyal, not so inhumanly heroic, that it can
truthfully be reported that he never thought of getting rid of Bill. He
did think of it, again and again. But always he was touched by Bill's
unsuspecting trust, and shook his head, and sank again into the fog.
What was the use of trying to go ahead? Wasn't he, after all, merely a
Bill McGolwey himself?
If he was, he wouldn't inflict himself on Claire.
For several minutes he gave up forever the zest of climbing.
When Bill awoke, brightly solicitous about the rest of the quart of
Bourbon, and bouncingly ready to "go out and have a time," Milt loafed
about the streets with him, showing him the city. He dully cut his
classes, next morning, and took Bill to the wharves.
It was late in the afternoon, when they were lounging in the room, and
Bill was admiring his new pants--he boasted of having bought them for
three dollars, and pointed out that Milt had been a "galoot" to spend
ten dollars for shoes--that some one knocked at the door. Sleepily
expectant of his landlady, Milt opened it on Miss Claire Boltwood, Mr.
and Mrs. Eugene Gilson, and Mr. Geoffrey Saxton.
Saxton calmly looked past him, at Bill, smiled slightly, and
condescended, "I thought we ought to call on you, so we've dropped in to
beg for tea."
Bill had stopped midway in scratching his head to gape at Claire. Claire
returned the look, stared at Bill's frowsy hair, his red wrists, his
wrinkled, grease-stained coat, his expression of impertinent stupidity.
Then she glanced questioningly at Milt, who choked:
"Oh yes, yes, sure, glad see you, come in, get some tea, so glad see
you, come in----"