ELIZABETH IS SCARED
"Well, Baby."
"Well, Daddy."
Elizabeth and her father were the first ones down to breakfast on the
morning after his arrival with Buddy--the first of the visiting family,
at least. Grandfather had been outside and at work since dawn, and
Grandmother and Judidy had been in the kitchen almost as long, employed
in magnificent preparations for feasting the returned sons of the house.
"What is all this radiance for this morning, Elizabeth? Me or Buddy or
the new roadster?"
"You _and_ Buddy _and_ the new roadster, Father, darling. The roadster
was the completest surprise, but I am more intimately fond of you and
Buddy. I just can't believe you are here. I gave myself a good hard
pinch every time I woke up in the night, to try to make myself believe
it. The last time, I got up and sneaked to your door and listened to
hear if you were breathing."
"Well, was I?"
"You were doing more than that, Daddy."
"Where did you sleep when they turned you out of your room for John?"
"I'll show you bye and bye, Daddy. I've got a room of my own, and all I
had to do was to put a tiny, weeny little bed in it. I thought that was
going to crowd it dreadfully. Instead, it is very becoming to it. Faith,
Hope, and Charity guard my slumbers, only I couldn't slumber, I was so
excited."
"Faith, Hope, and Charity?" her father looked inquiring.
"They are my guardian angels, borrowed from Aunt Helen by permission of
Grandmother. Would you like to go out and see the pigs, Daddy?"
"I'd like to but I don't think we've time before breakfast."
"Well, their names are Faith, Hope, and Charity, also--this new litter,
I mean. Grandfather let me name them. They are excruciatingly cunning,
Daddy. Faith and Hope keep themselves a little messily, but Charity is
as clean as a kitten. She knows her name, too, and comes when you call
her by it."
"Her?"
"Well, him or her. All their names are nice and non-committal. They can
be boys or girls, whichever they like."
"I should think they were committed to a great deal, in either event."
"Well, children," Grandmother appeared behind a platter heaped high with
crisp, hot doughnuts, "have you got a good appetite for your breakfast?"
"It seems so funny to think of your being Grandmas child," Elizabeth
said.
"But I am."
"Well, it's hard to believe it."
Grandfather, who had followed on his wife's heels, took his place at the
head of the table, and shook out his napkin.
"I've heard tell of a feller that went driving down Chatham way one
day," he said, "and he come to an old house in the woods, and there he
found a little old man sitting on the doorstep that was so old and
palsied and shaky, he could hardly make out to speak at all. Well, this
feller he wanted to find out how the old man happened to be left alone
at his great age, with no care nor companionship nor nothing, so he
asked him; he says 'Do you live all alone here?' he says. The little old
man he was so deaf he couldn't hardly hear nothing, but this feller he
asked him again, and he put his hand up to his ears and just made out to
catch the question. 'No,' he says in his high-pitched, quavering voice,
'No, I don't live here all alone, I live here with my father.'--'Your
father?' this feller says, all taken aback, 'Your father? Have you got a
father? Where is he?' The little old man he hardly made out to get this
question at all, but after a long time, when it had been repeated to him
over and over again, he managed to understand it. 'Where's Father?' he
says. 'You ask me where my father is? Well, where should he be, 'cepting
upstairs, putting Grandfather to bed.'"
Mr. Swift laughed immoderately.
"I suppose it does look a little like that to Elizabeth," he said.
"She's used to thinking of me as being about as old as that kind of
relative gets to be."
"Grandfather's whole life is spent in teasing me," Elizabeth said, "it's
bread and butter and pie and cake to him."
"By the way, Father, where is your pie this morning? I didn't know that
you ever started the day without it, but I don't see it on the table."
"Now, I am going to tell something on Father," Grandmother said, slyly.
"He ain't had a piece o' pie for his breakfast since Elizabeth come, and
he wouldn't let me put none on the table, either."
"I was afraid she'd get to making it the way she makes cake, and I'd
have to eat it whether or no." Grandfather mopped his brow with a great
show of vigour.
"It warn't that," Grandmother smiled. "He was just sprucing up for his
city granddaughter a little. He went down street and got two new
neckties and a white cotton vest before she'd been here a week. He had
to kind of jerk Elizabeth down a peg and jerk himself up several to meet
her."
"Why, Granddaddy _Swift_," Elizabeth said, "have you been going without
your breakfast pie on my account?"
"Who said breakfast pie?" a gaunt figure in khaki appeared in the
doorway, and Elizabeth, with one admonishing finger still uplifted,
turned from her grandfather and with one leap hurled herself upon it.
"I'm going to get out of these clothes to-morrow," Buddy continued,
calmly, holding his sister off with one hand, "but I have forgotten how
to get into regular trousers before breakfast. Emerson, the well-known
sage of Concord, used to eat pie for his breakfast--pumpkin pie, and it
goes very well with coffee."
"Grandfather won't let me have so much as a snitch of coffee," Elizabeth
pouted, still clinging to him.
"Not even a demi-tassy," Grandfather put in, slyly.
"And a good thing, too," Buddy said. "Granddad, your ideas of bringing
up Elizabeth are a good deal like my own--a firm, strong hand applied
wherever necessary."
"And last but not least--Mother," said Elizabeth, pausing in the midst
of a grimace at her brother. "I never knew you to be the last one at the
breakfast table in my life before, Mother."
"I'm glad," Mrs. Swift said, as she took her place between her children,
"and oh, John and I have our napkin rings! I was going to bear it with
resignation if we didn't, but I am so glad to see them again. We had
them on our honeymoon, you know."
"Elizabeth had one for a while, but she didn't seem to admire it, not
what you might call beyond reason," Grandfather said.
"Oh, dear!" said Elizabeth, "the instances keep piling up of the way he
has seen right through me from the first minute of my coming, but now
I'm beginning to see through him," she added, triumphantly.
"When anybody makes up their mind they are beginning to see through
Father, there is generally breakers ahead for them," Grandmother said,
thoughtfully.
"It's from Father that I get whatever business acumen I have," John
Swift said; "let the other fellow think he is getting away with
everything, and then when he has given himself entirely away, never let
up on him."
"Yes, that's my principle," Grandfather said, complacently.
"I'm going into Father's office, did you know it?" Buddy said. "Until
day before yesterday I might just as well have thought of getting a job
with J. P. Morgan, and then suddenly this opening came, and my old boss
recommended me for it."
"We lost a good man suddenly," John Swift explained, "and yesterday
morning old Howard came in to me and asked me what I knew of a youngster
named John Smith that used to be with the Urner Company. I was pretty
sure he had got the name wrong, so I told him I'd call up the Urner
office and find out if he was the one I thought he was. In the
afternoon, just before I left, Howard asked me if I found out anything
about the boy, and if I knew anything to his advantage or disadvantage.
'I do,' I said, 'both. He's my son.' 'We'll take him in,' Howard said,
'I guess you know how to handle him by this time.'"
"You see," Buddy explained, "I began to get busy on the hospital wire
just as soon as I realized I was cured, and my old boss is a white man,
if ever there was one."
"Not going to Russia just at present?" his father asked.
"Not going to Russia," Buddy said, steadily.
After breakfast Elizabeth had her first minute alone with her brother.
They were in the living room, in Grandmother's and Grandfather's chairs
respectively, with the big fern branching between them.
"Well, Sister?" Buddy said.
"Well, Buddy!"
"What do you know about Ruth, now?"
"About Ruth?"
"Yes, Sister, darling, you heard me the first time."
"You mean how--how is she?"
"I mean, tell me everything you know that you haven't told me before."
"Haven't you talked with Mother about her since you came?"
"Not a word."
"Hasn't she told you----"
"Nothing."
"Well, then, I've got to."
"You certainly have--and quick," said Buddy. "What is it? Fire away."
"Ruth--Ruth is going to--to get married next week--Thursday."
"Oh!" Buddy's jaw shut on the monosyllable.
"It was hurried up all of a sudden. I saw her and talked with her on the
beach once, and she said to tell you that your telegram was a day too
late."
"Thanks," said Buddy, briefly.
"She sent her love, and said you were a day too late."
"We'll see about that. Is this Chambers fellow around?"
"No, he is in Boston, but he comes down to see her all the time."
"We'll see about that, too. What's her telephone number?"
"Thirty-two, ring eleven. You have to ring in, you know--that handle on
the box, and ask Central."
"Oh, I know," said Buddy, "telephone is nice and convenient, isn't it?
Anybody on the farm can hear from this location," he picked up the
instrument from the desk in the corner.
"Shall I go?" Elizabeth asked.
"No, dear."
"I want to speak to Miss Ruth Farraday--Mr. Swift." He put his hand over
the mouthpiece, the fingers trembled slightly, but his voice was cool,
"I guess that was your friend Peggy. Sounded like a flapper's voice.
She's gone to call her. Oh, hello, Ruth," he said into the instrument,
"this is John. Yes, I managed to squirm out. Fine, thank you. A little
under weight, that's all. I want to see you. Now, this morning, may I
come over there? I wouldn't take up much time. Yes it _is_ important.
Oh, all right, that will be better yet. I am perfectly able to make it,
but I'd rather have you here if you'll come. All right. In about half an
hour. All right. Good-bye."
"She's coming here," he explained to Elizabeth, "she was starting out to
do some errands. She didn't want me there, at any rate. Perhaps Chambers
is expected."
"The walls of that house are as thin as paper," Elizabeth said, "and I'm
glad you don't have to go there. Her mother might be around."
"It's awfully decent of her to come here."
"She _is_ awfully decent."
"She's scared."
"Who wouldn't be?" Elizabeth said. "My gracious!"
"I suppose I ought to try to get into some kind of decent clothes."
"No," said Elizabeth, "stay in those."
"But I've been mustered out. I ought to be in 'cits'."
"She'd like you better in those," Elizabeth said, positively.
"How do you know?"
"I don't know how I know, but I know," Elizabeth said. "I'm a girl, and
I know."
"I guess you are," Buddy said. "I never thought of it before, but you're
a girl and you've got a line on girls. Do I look pretty punk to you?
Cadaverous and all that?"
"You are the handsomest thing," Elizabeth cried, "that I ever saw,
Buddy. You used to be good looking, but now you've got a kind
of--look--a soulful look--that----"
"That'll do. I was only interested in my physical aspect."
"Well, that's perfect," Elizabeth said.
"Is my face clean?"
"Let me see. Yes, it is, perfectly."
"Then I won't go upstairs at all. You just sit around and help me kill
time till she comes."
"Oh, Buddy, can I kiss you just once?"
"You cannot," said Buddy. "I've changed a good deal in a great many
ways, but I haven't got to the point where I like to be kissed after
breakfast yet."
"You used to write pretty affectionately from those old trenches."
"There was an ocean between us then, and it was perfectly safe."
"I think men are the funniest things," Elizabeth said. "It isn't that
they don't want to be loved----"
"No, it isn't," said Buddy. "So tell Mother to keep the coast clear,
will you, and then come back. No, don't come back. I'll watch for Ruth
and let her in. No, you watch for Ruth and let her in. You bring her in
here, and then get out unless I tell you to stick around. See?"
"You can't tell me that before her."
"I can tell anybody anything before her."
"All right," Elizabeth said, "but--but I'm scared, Buddy."
"You--you go to the deuce," her brother said, and only then did
Elizabeth realize the strain under which he was labouring.
It was with a face nearly as white as Buddy's own that she opened the
door to Ruth a few minutes later.
"Buddy's in there," she said, weakly, to Ruth's inquiry.
"Come and show me," Ruth said.
"Right this way," Elizabeth said, superfluously. "Buddy, here's Ruth."
"All right," said Buddy, unfolding his long legs from the rocking chair,
and advancing so slowly that Elizabeth knew he was trembling with
weakness, "you may go now, Elizabeth."
"Please," said Ruth Farraday in her low voice, "let her stay."
"All right," said Buddy, "you may stay, Elizabeth."
"I'd rather go," said Elizabeth, miserably. But neither of the two paid
any more attention to her.
Ruth put out her hand, and then when Buddy would have taken it, withdrew
it.
"I am going to be married," she said, "next week. Did Elizabeth tell
you?"
"Yes," said Buddy. "It's me you should be marrying. You know that, don't
you?"
"No," said Ruth Farraday. "Yes, I do know it, I think. But it's too late
now."
"It's not too late."
"You don't seem to understand that I am going to be married--married
next week."
"I heard you the first time," said Buddy, grimly.
"Well?"
"You are my girl," said Buddy, "and you know it."
"Supposing I do," said Ruth Farraday, "what then?"
"Then this marriage is a lie. It can't happen."
"It has--happened, as far as I am concerned. I have given my word."
"Ruth, you can't mean that."
"But I do."
"It means a lifetime of misery for three people."
"But it's all done, now. That's all there is to say."
"You mean, you haven't the courage to break away?"
"I mean more than that. This has happened, that's all, I've given my
word. I've let things get where they are. If you wanted to marry me, you
should have told me when I was free. I waited for you, for just a word
or a line from you."
"I was sick."
"I wasn't waiting for you to get well, and write me you were well. I
wanted to know that you thought of me when you were sick."
"Oh, Ruth, I didn't think of anything else."
"I waited as long as I could, that was all."
"Ruth----" Buddy said, "Ruth----" He took a long step toward her, "Get
out of this room, Elizabeth," he said, steadily, "you are willing for
her to go, dear, aren't you?" he said, as Ruth put out a restraining
hand.
"Oh, I don't know. Oh, I don't know."
"I'd better go," said Elizabeth, and Buddy nodded to her as she slipped
out. Before the door had closed on her, he had walked across the floor
and taken Ruth Farraday in his arms.
It was nearly half an hour later that Elizabeth, watching from the room
above, saw Buddy walk with Ruth to the gate, open it for her, and stand
with his head bared as she walked down the street. She ran down the
stairs breathlessly to meet him as he came in.
"Is it all right?" she asked. "Oh, Buddy, is it all right?"
"It's all right, little sister," Buddy said, "it's all right anyway, the
way she wants it. She won't break it off. She thinks it wouldn't be
honourable."
"But she must break it off, Buddy. It'll kill you if she doesn't."
"No, it won't. She must do what she wants to do."
"But she doesn't know what she wants," Elizabeth cried.
"She knows what's right for her."
"I don't believe she does at all."
"You don't know."
"I do know this," Elizabeth cried, "you can't stand it, Buddy, it will
kill you. It will kill you."
"All right, then," said Buddy, "let it. But I don't think it's going to.
She wouldn't want it to, you see."