A WRECKED CANNA BED
Raridan was at the station to meet Evelyn's guests, as he had promised.
He had established a claim upon their notice on the occasion of one of
his visits to Evelyn at college, and he greeted them with an air of
possession which would have been intolerable in another man. He pressed
Miss Warren for news of the Connecticut nutmeg crop, and hoped that Miss
Marshall had not lost her accent in crossing the Missouri, while he
begged their baggage checks and waved their minor impedimenta into the
hands of the station porters.
Wise men, long ago, abandoned the hope of accounting for college
friendships in either sex, and there was nothing proved in Evelyn's case
by her choice of these young women as her intimate friends. Annie Warren
was as reserved and quiet as Evelyn could be in her soberest moments;
Belle Marshall was as frank and friendly as Evelyn became in her
lightest moods. Evelyn had been the beauty of her class; her two friends
were what is called, by people that wish to be kind, nice looking. Annie
Warren had been the best scholar in her class; Belle Marshall had been
among the poorest; and Evelyn had maintained a happy medium between the
two. And so it fortunately happened that the trio mitigated one
another's imperfections.
Evelyn had summoned her guests at this time principally to have their
support through the carnival. They made light of the perplexities and
difficulties of Evelyn's own participation when she unfolded them; there
would be a lot of fun in it, they thought, and they deemed it, too, a
recognition of Evelyn's fine qualities. They were fresh from college and
they could see nothing in the carnival and the coronation of the
carnival's queen that was inconsistent with a girl's dignity; it ranked
at least with some of the festivals of girl's colleges. The whole matter
presently resolved itself into the question of clothes, and Evelyn's
coronation gown was laid before them and duly praised.
"It is worth while," declared Miss Marshall, "to have a chance to wear
clothes like that just once in your life."
Evelyn had discussed with her father ways and means of entertaining her
guests; he was anxious for her to celebrate her home-coming with a great
deal of entertaining. He preferred large functions, perhaps for the
reason that he could lose himself better in them than in small
gatherings, in which his responsibilities as host could not be dodged.
In a large company he could take one or two of his old friends into a
corner and enjoy a smoke with them. He wished Evelyn to give a lawn
party before the blight of fall came upon his flowers and shrubbery; but
she persuaded him to wait until after the carnival. He still felt a
little guilty about having asked Evelyn to appear in this public way,
but she showed no resentment; she was honestly glad to do anything that
would please him. The ball was near at hand and she proposed that they
give a small dinner in the interval.
"I'll ask Warry and Mr. Saxton." People were already coupling Saxton's
name with Raridan's.
"Oh, yes, that's all right."
"I don't want very many; I'd like to ask the Whipples;" she went on,
with the anxious, far-away look that comes into the eyes of a woman who
is weighing dinner guests or matching fabrics.
"Can't you ask Wheaton?" ventured Mr. Porter cautiously from behind his
paper. Men grow humble in such matters from the long series of
rejections to which they are subjected by the women of their households.
"If you say so," Evelyn assented. "He isn't exciting, but Belle Marshall
can get on with anybody. I'm out of practice and won't try too many.
Mrs. Whipple will help over the hard places."
Finally, however, her party numbered ten, but it seemed to Wheaton a
large assemblage. He had never taken a lady in to dinner before, but he
had studied a book of etiquette, and the chapter on "Dining Out" had
given him a hint of what was expected. It had not, however, supplied him
with a fund of talk, but he was glad to find, when he reached the table,
that the company was so small that talk could be general, and he was
thankful for the shelter made for him by the light banter which followed
the settling of chairs. Saxton went in with Evelyn, who wished to make
amends for his clumsy reception on the occasion of his first appearance
in the house.
"I'm glad you could come to our board once without being snubbed by the
maid," she said to John, when they were seated.
"I came under convoy of Mr. Raridan this time. I find that he is pretty
hard to lose."
"Oh, he's a splendid guide! He declares that there are just as
interesting things to see here in Clarkson as there are in Rome or
Venice. He told Miss Warren this afternoon that it would take him a
month to show her half the sights."
"He certainly makes things interesting. His local history is
delightful."
"Yes; father tells him that he knows nearly everything, but that the
pity is it isn't all true. You see, Warry and I have known each other
always. The Raridans lived very near us, just over the way."
"He has shown me the place; it's on the clay sugar loaf across the
street."
"Isn't it shameful of him not to bring his ancestral home down to the
street level?"
"Oh, he says he'd rather burn the money. It seems that he fought the
assessment as long as he could and has refused to abide by it. He enjoys
fighting it in the courts. It gives him something to do."
"That's like Warry. He can be more steadfast in error than anybody."
Raridan was exchanging chaff with Miss Marshall across the table and
Wheaton was stranded for the moment.
"You must tell us about that Chinaman at your bachelors' house, Mr.
Wheaton. Mr. Raridan has told me many funny stories about him, but I
think he makes up most of them."
"I'd hardly dare repudiate any of Mr. Raridan's stories; but I'll say
that we couldn't get on without the Chinaman. He's a very faithful
fellow."
"But Mr. Raridan says he isn't!" exclaimed Evelyn. "He says that you
bachelors suffer terribly from his mistakes, and that he can't keep any
rice for use at weddings because the Oriental takes it out of his
pockets and makes puddings of it."
"That must be one of Mr. Raridan's jokes," said Wheaton. "We have had no
rice pudding since I went to live at The Bachelors'." Wheaton was
suspicious of Raridan's jokes. He was not always sure that he caught the
point of them. He saw that Saxton, who sat opposite him, got on very
well with Miss Porter, and he was surprised at this; he had thought
Saxton very slow, and yet he seemed to be as much at his ease as
Raridan, who was Wheaton's ideal master of social accomplishment. He was
somewhat dismayed by the array of silver beside his plate, and he found
himself covertly taking his cue from Saxton, who seemed to make his
choice without difficulty. It dawned on him presently that the forks and
spoons were arranged in order; that it was not necessary to exercise any
judgment of selection, and he felt elated to see how easily it was
managed. In his relief he engaged Miss Marshall in a talk about
Richmond. He knew the names of banks and bankers there, from having
looked them up in the bank directories in the course of business. He
liked the Southern girl's vivacity, though he thought Evelyn much
handsomer and more dignified. She asked him whether he played golf,
which had just been introduced into Clarkson, and he was forced to admit
that he did not; and he ventured to add that he had heard it called an
old man's game. When she replied that she shouldn't imagine then that it
would interest him particularly, he felt foolish and could not think of
anything to say in reply. Raridan again claimed Miss Marshall's
attention, and Wheaton was drawn into talk with Evelyn and Saxton.
"Mr. Saxton has never seen one of our carnivals," she said, "and neither
have I. You know I've missed them by being away so much."
"They expect to have a great entertainment this year," said Wheaton. He
was sorry for the secrecy with which the names of the principal
participants were guarded; he would have liked to say something to Miss
Porter about it, but he did not dare, with Saxton listening. Moreover,
he was not sure that she had consented to take part.
"I suppose it's a good deal like amateur theatricals, only on a larger
scale," suggested Saxton.
"That's not taking the carnival in the right spirit," said Evelyn. "The
word amateur is jarring, I think. We must try to imagine that King Midas
really and truly comes floating down the Missouri River on a barge,
supported by his men of magic, and that they are met by a delegation of
the wise men of Clarkson, all properly clad, and escorted to the local
parthenon, or whatever it is called, where the keys of the city are
given to him. I'm sure it's all very plausible."
"But I don't see," said Saxton, "why all the western towns that go in
for these carnivals have to go back to mythology and medieval customs.
Why don't they use something indigenous,--the Indians for instance?"
"They're too recent," Evelyn answered. "The people around here--a good
many of them, at least--were here before the savages had all gone. And
those whose fathers and mothers were scalped might take it as
unpleasantly suggestive if a lot of white men, dressed up as Indians,
paraded themselves through the streets."
"What was that about Indians?" demanded Mr. Porter, who had been busy
exchanging reminiscences with Mrs. Whipple. "Why, there hasn't been an
Indian on the place for twenty years!"
"Oh yes, there has, father," said Evelyn. "It was only five years ago
that there were two in this room. Don't you remember, when Warry had his
hobby for educating Indian youth? He brought those boys up here for
Christmas dinner."
"I remember; and they didn't like turkey," added Mr. Porter. "They were
hungry for their native bear meat."
"It's too bad," said Raridan sorrowfully, "that a man never can live
down his good deeds."
Raridan liked to pretend that Clarkson society had a deep philosophy
which he alone understood. He had fallen into his favorite role as a
social sage for the benefit of the strangers, and Mrs. Whipple was
correcting or denying what he said. He had assured the table that the
supreme social test was whether people could walk on their own hardwood
floors and rugs without taking the long slide into eternity. Philistines
could buy hardwood floors, but only the elect could walk on them.
"Society in Clarkson is easily classified," said Raridan readily, as
though he had often given thought to this subject. "There are three
classes of homes in this town, namely, those in which no servants are
kept, those in which two are kept, and those in which the maids wear
caps."
"Warry is going from bad to worse," declared Mrs. Whipple. "I'm sure he
could give in advance the menu of any dinner he's asked to."
"A tax on the memory and not on the imagination," retorted Warry.
Miss Warren was asking Mr. Porter's opinion of local political
conditions which were just then attracting wide-spread attention. Mr.
Porter was expressing his distrust of a leader who had leaped into fame
by a violent arraignment of the rich.
"It wouldn't be so terribly hard for us all to get rich," said Warry. "I
sometimes marvel at the squalor about us. All that a man need do is to
concentrate his attention on one thing, and if he is capable of earning
a dollar a day he can just as easily earn ten thousand a year. Why"--he
continued earnestly, "I knew a fellow in Peoria, who devised a scheme
for building duplicates of some of the architectural wonders of the Old
World in American cities. His plan was to send out a million postal
cards inviting a dollar apiece from a million people. Almost anybody can
give away a dollar and not miss it."
"How did the scheme work?" asked Mr. Porter.
"It wasn't tested," answered Warry. "The doctors in the sanitarium
wouldn't let him out long enough to mail his postal cards."
General Whipple persuaded Miss Marshall to tell a negro story, which she
did delightfully, while the table listened. Southerners are, after all,
the most natural talkers we have and the only ones who can talk freely
of themselves without offense. Her speech was musical, and she told her
story with a nice sense of its dramatic quality. At the climax, after
the laughter had abated, she asked, with an air of surprise at their
pleasure in her tale:
"Didn't you all ever hear that story before?" She was guiltless of final
r's, and her drawl was delicious.
"Oh, Miss Marshall! I _knew_ you'd say it!" Raridan appealed to the
others to be sure of witnesses.
"What are you all laughing at?" demanded the girl, flushing and smiling
about her.
"Oh, you did it twice!"
"I _didn't_ say it, Mr. Raridan," she said, with dignity. "I never said
that after I went North to school."
"Well, Belle," said Evelyn, "I'm heartily ashamed of you. After all we
did in college to break you of it, you are at it again though you've
been only a few months away from us."
"It's hopeless, I'm afraid," said Miss Warren. "You know, Evelyn, she
said 'I-alls' when she first came to college."
They had their coffee on the veranda, where the lights from within made
a pleasant dusk about them. Porter's heart was warm with the joy of
Evelyn's home-coming. She had been away from him so much that he was
realizing for the first time the common experience of fathers, who find
that their daughters have escaped suddenly and inexplicably from
girlhood into womanhood; and yet the girl heart in her had not lost its
freshness nor its thirst for pleasure. She had carried off her little
company charmingly; Porter had enjoyed it himself, and he felt young
again in the presence of youth.
General Whipple had attached himself to one of the couples of young
people that were strolling here and there in the grounds. Porter and
Mrs. Whipple held the veranda alone; both were unconsciously watching
Evelyn and Saxton as they walked back and forth in front of the house,
talking gaily; and Porter smiled at the eagerness and quickness of her
movements. Saxton's deliberateness contrasted oddly with the girl's
light step. Such a girl must marry a man worthy of her; there could be
no question of that; and for the first time the thought of losing her
rose in his heart and numbed it.
Porter's cigar had gone out, a fact to which Mrs. Whipple called his
attention.
"I've heard that it's a great compliment for a man to let his cigar go
out when he's talking to a woman. But I don't believe my chatter was
responsible for it this time." She nodded toward Evelyn, as if she
understood what had been in his thought.
"She's very fine. Both handsome and sensible, and at our age we know how
rare the combination is."
"I shall have to trust you to keep an eye on her. I want her to know the
right people." He spoke between the flashes of the cigar he was
relighting.
"Don't worry about her. You may trust her around the world. Evelyn has
already manifested an interest in my advice," she added, smiling to
herself in the dark,--"and she didn't seem much pleased with it!"
Evelyn and Saxton had met the others, who were coming up from the walks,
and there was a redistribution at the house; it was too beautiful to go
in, they said, and the strolling abroad continued. A great flood of
moonlight poured over the grounds. A breeze stole up from the valley and
made a soothing rustle in the trees. Evelyn rescued Wheaton and Miss
Warren from each other; she sent Raridan away to impart, as he said,
further western lore to the Yankee. She followed, with Wheaton, the arc
which the others were transcribing. A feeling of elation possessed him.
The tide of good fortune was bearing him far, but memory played hide and
seek with him as he walked there talking to Evelyn Porter; he was struck
with the unreality of this new experience. He was afraid of blundering;
of failing to meet even the trifling demands of her careless talk. He
remembered once, in his train-boy days, having pressed upon a pretty
girl one of Miss Braddon's novels; and the girl's scornful rejection of
the book and of himself came back and mocked him. Raridan's merry laugh
rang out suddenly far across the lawn; he had done more with his life
than Raridan would ever do with his; Raridan was a foolish fellow.
Saxton passed them with Miss Marshall; Saxton was dull; he had failed in
the cattle business. James Wheaton was not a town's jester, and he was
not a failure. Evelyn was telling him some of Belle Marshall's pranks at
school.
"She was the greatest cut-up. I suppose she'll never change. I don't
believe we do change so much as the wiseacres pretend, do you?"
She was aware that she had talked a great deal and threw out this line
to him a little desperately; he was proving even more difficult than she
had imagined him. He had been thinking of his mother--forgotten these
many years--who was old even when he left home. He remembered her only
as the dominant figure of the steaming kitchen where she had ministered
with rough kindness and severity to her uncouth brood. His sisters--what
loutish, brawling girls they were, and how they fought over whatever
silly finery they were able to procure for themselves! A faint
flower-scent rose from the soft skirts of the tall young woman beside
him. He hated himself for his memories.
He felt suddenly alarmed by her question, which seemed to aim at the
undercurrent of his own silent thought.
"There are those of us who ought to change," he said.
The others had straggled back toward the veranda and were disappearing
indoors.
"They seem to be going in. We can find our way through the sun-porch; I
suppose it might be called a moon-porch, too," she said, leading the
way.
They heard the sound of the piano through the open windows, and a girl's
voice broke gaily into song.
"It's Belle. She does sing those coon songs wonderfully. Let us wait
here until she finishes this one." The sun-porch opened from the
dining-room. They could see beyond it, into the drawing-room; the singer
was in plain view, sitting at the piano; Raridan stood facing her,
keeping time with an imaginary baton.
A man came unobserved to the glass door of the porch and stood
unsteadily peering in. He was very dirty and balanced himself in that
abandon with which intoxicated men belie Newton's discovery. He had
gained the top step with difficulty; the light from the window blinded
him and for a moment he stood within the inclosure blinking. An ugly
grin spread over his face as he made out the two figures by the window,
and he began a laborious journey toward them. He tried to tiptoe, and
this added further to his embarrassments; but the figures by the window
were intent on the song and did not hear him. He drew slowly nearer; one
more step and he would have concluded his journey. He poised on his toes
before taking it, but the law of gravitation now asserted itself. He
lunged forward heavily, casting himself upon Wheaton, and nearly
knocking him from his feet.
"Jimmy," he blurted in a drunken voice. "Jim-my!"
Evelyn turned quickly and shrank back with a cry. Wheaton was slowly
rallying from the shock of his surprise. He grabbed the man by the arms
and began pushing him toward the door.
"Don't be alarmed," he said over his shoulder to Evelyn, who had shrunk
back against the wall. "I'll manage him."
This, however, was not so easily done. The tramp, as Evelyn supposed him
to be, had been sobered by Wheaton's attack. He clasped his fingers
about Wheaton's throat and planted his feet firmly. He clearly intended
to stand his ground, and he dug his fingers into Wheaton's neck with the
intention of hurting.
[Illustration]
"Father!" cried Evelyn once, but the song was growing noisier toward its
end and the circle about the piano did not hear. She was about to call
again when a heavy step sounded outside on the walk and Bishop Delafield
came swiftly into the porch. He had entered the grounds from the rear
and was walking around the house to the front door.
"Quick! that man there,--I'll call the others!" cried Evelyn, still
shrinking against the wall. Wheaton had been forced to his knees and his
assailant was choking him. But there was no need of other help. The
bishop had already seized the tramp about the body with his great hands,
tearing him from Wheaton's neck. He strode, with the squirming figure in
his grasp, toward an open window at the back of the glass inclosure, and
pushed the man out. There was a great snorting and threshing below. The
hill dipped abruptly away from this side of the house and the man had
fallen several feet, into a flower bed.
"Get away from here," the bishop said, in his deep voice, "and be quick
about it." The man rose and ran swiftly down the slope toward the
street.
The bishop walked back to the window. The others had now hurried out in
response to Evelyn's peremptory calls, and she was telling of the
tramp's visit, while Wheaton received their condolences, and readjusted
his tie. His collar and shirt-front showed signs of contact with dirt.
"It was a tramp," said Evelyn, as the others plied her with questions,
"and he attacked Mr. Wheaton."
"Where's he gone?" demanded Porter, excitedly.
"There he goes," said the bishop, pointing toward the window. "He
smelled horribly of whisky, and I dropped him gently out of the window.
The shock seems to have inspired his legs."
"I'll have the police--," began Porter.
"Oh, he's gone now, Mr. Porter," said Wheaton coolly, as he restored
his tie. "Bishop Delafield disposed of him so vigorously that he'll
hardly come back."
"Yes, let him go," said the bishop, wiping his hands on his
handkerchief. "I'm only afraid, Porter, that I've spoiled your best
canna bed."