house. "Not blue! Please don't! It--it's dangerous."
"Oh, but it is a dream of a waist!" said Kitty. "You wait until you
see it."
"No!" pleaded Billy again. "Not a blue one! If you wore a blue
one I couldn't help but notice it was blue. It isn't safe. Don't
wear a blue one, or a green one, or a brown one. Just a white one.
Not any other color; just white. You see," he said with sudden
confidentiality, "I'm a detective. I'm detecting for Tom. I told him
I would, and I've got to keep my word. He has a notion someone is
smuggling things into the house without paying the duty, and he got
me to detect at you for him. We're suspicious about your clothes.
There's a white waist, and this pink waist, already, and if you go
to wearing blue ones and all sorts of colors, I can't help but
notice it. I don't want to get you into trouble with Tom, you know."
He hesitated a moment and then said, "You helped me out about those
cigars."
"All right!" said Kitty, cheerfully, "I'll wear a white one, but I
think you might be color blind if you really want to help me."
VIII
THE FIELD OF DISHONOR
There was a train from the city at 6:02, and Tom was not likely to
be home on one earlier. At 5:48 Kitty and Billy and Mrs. Fenelby
were sitting on the porch, and Bobberts was lying in a tilted-back
rocking chair, behaving himself. It was a calm and peaceful suburban
scene--the stillness and the loneliness and the mosquitoes were all
present. It was the idle time when no one cares whether time flies
or halts. Mrs. Fenelby had the table set and the cold dinner ready;
Kitty was primped; and Billy should have had nothing in the world to
do, but he had been opening and closing his watch every minute for
the last half hour. He was uneasy. At 5:48 he arose and stretched
out his arms.
"I guess," he said as lazily as he could; "I guess I'll walk down
and meet Tom. I haven't been out much to-day."
There was one thing he had to do. He had to see Tom before Mrs.
Fenelby could see him, and explain about that box of cigars. If Tom
was to be held responsible for the duty on it Tom should at least
know that a box of cigars had been brought into the house. It was
absolutely necessary for Billy to see Tom, and explain a few things.
"We have none of us been out enough to-day," said Mrs. Fenelby. "It
will do us all good to walk down to the station, and we will take
Bobberts."
Billy stood still. The cheerful expression that had rested on his
face faded. There would be a pretty lot of trouble if the whole lot
of them went in a group, and he wondered that Kitty did not see
this, and why she did not say something to dissuade Mrs. Fenelby
from leaving the house. He simply had to get a few words with Tom in
private before Mrs. Fenelby could ask her husband about the cigars.
[Illustration: "When the 6:02 pulled in"]
"I wouldn't advise it," said Billy, shaking his head. "No, indeed. I
wouldn't take the chance, Laura." He walked to the end of the porch
and peered earnestly at the western sky. It was a singularly clear
and cloudless sky. "I'm afraid it will rain," he explained, boldly.
"It wouldn't do to take Bobberts out and let him get rained on. It
looks just like one of those evenings when a rain comes up all of
a sudden. I wouldn't risk it."
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Fenelby, shortly, and she gathered the crowing
Bobberts into her arms and started. Kitty also arose, but Billy hung
back.
"I guess I won't go," he declared. "It looks too much like rain."
"Nonsense!" declared Mrs. Fenelby again. "You come right along. I
don't believe it will rain for a week."
There was nothing for him to do but to go, and he went. The three of
them were standing on the platform when the 6:02 pulled in, and they
looked eagerly for Mr. Fenelby, but they did not see him among the
alighting commuters. Mr. Fenelby saw them first. He saw them before
the train pulled up to the station, for he had been standing on the
car platform with a box under his arm, ready to make a dash for home
the moment the train stopped, but now he stepped back and, as the
train slowed down, he jumped off on the opposite side of the train.
There was a small row of evergreens on the little lawn of the
station, and he stepped behind one of them and waited. Between the
thin branches of the tree he could see his family, when the train
pulled out, looking eagerly at the straggling line of commuters. The
box he held was heavy, and he hoped the family would soon decide
that he had missed the train, and would go home, but he saw Mrs.
Fenelby seat herself on the waiting-bench. He saw Kitty take a seat
beside her, and he saw Billy, after evident hesitation, take the
seat next to Kitty. The evergreen tree was small, and the next tree
to it was ten feet distant. He was marooned behind that tree.
Mr. Fenelby instantly saw that he had done a foolish thing. He had
that overwhelming sense of foolishness that comes to a man at times,
when he thinks he has never done a sane and sound act in his whole
silly life. Mr. Fenelby realized that he had been foolish when he
had bought, on the subscription plan, a complete set of Eugene
Field's works, bound in three-quarters levant morocco, twelve
volumes for thirty-six dollars. He realized that although he had had
to pay but five dollars down, to the agent, he would have to pay
thirty per cent. of the value of the whole set, in duty, the moment
he took the books into the house. He realized that he had been silly
to bring the whole heavy set home at one time. He realized that he
had been positively childish when he thought of hiding himself
behind this miserable little tree, with this heavy box in his arms
and six suburban stores staring him full in the face. He wondered
what the proprietors of the six stores would think of him if they
happened to see him hiding there behind the tree, while his whole
family awaited him on the station platform. And then, as he happened
to remember that one of the stores was a drug-store with a
soda-fountain, he shuddered. Given three suburbanites on a station
platform, and a train not due for thirty minutes for which they must
wait, and a soda-fountain across the way, and the answer is that the
three suburbanites will soon be in the place where the soda-fountain
is.
When Mrs. Fenelby arose Mr. Fenelby shifted the box of books into a
more secure angle of his arm, and as the trio, and Bobberts, started
across the track and lawn Mr. Fenelby edged cautiously around the
tree to keep it between him and them. The trade of smuggler has ever
been one of wild adventure and excitement.
He peered at them until they entered the drug-store, and then he
backed cautiously away, step by step, with the tree as a screen. As
he reached the corner of the station he turned and ran, and as he
turned he saw Billy hurry out of the drug-store and run, and Mrs.
Fenelby and Kitty hurry out after Billy. Mr. Fenelby did not wait
to see if they also ran. He ran all the way home, and hurried into
the house, and up the stairs to the attic. He felt better about the
set of Field now. He had always wanted it, and he deserved it, for
he had waited for it long. He could hide it in the attic and bring
it into the realm of the tariff duty one volume at a time. He felt
his way into the fartherest corner and pushed the box under the
rafters. It would not quite go back where he wanted it to go, for
something was in the way of it. He pulled the other thing out. It
was also a box. It was another box of Eugene Field in twelve
volumes, three-quarter levant, and it was addressed to "Mrs. Thomas
Fenelby." There had never been any duty paid on books since the
Commonwealth of Bobberts had been established. For a moment Mr.
Fenelby frowned angrily; then he smiled. He hid his set of Field in
the other corner of the attic, and hurried down stairs.
He expected to find Billy there, for he had seen him start to run
when he left the drug-store, but there was no Billy in sight, and
Mr. Fenelby seated himself in the hammock and waited. He was ready
to receive his returning family with an easy conscience. His box was
well hidden. When they appeared in the distance he saw that they
were all together, Billy and the two girls and Bobberts, and Mr.
Fenelby arose and waved his hand to them. He was ready to be merry
and jovial, and to tease them cheerfully because they had not seen
him when he got off the train. But Mrs. Fenelby climbed the porch
steps with an air of anger.
"Good evening," she said, coldly. "I see you are home."
She laid Bobberts in the chair and faced Mr. Fenelby.
"Now, I want to know what all this means!" she declared. "I think
there is something peculiar going on in this family. Why did Billy
run all the way down to the next station so that he could be the
first to meet you as you came home this evening? Why did you avoid
us at the station and hurry home this way? You may think I am
simple, Thomas Fenelby, but I believe somebody is smuggling things
into the house without paying the tariff duty on them! I believe you
and Billy are conspiring to rob poor, dear little Bobberts, and I
want to know the truth about it! I believe Kitty is in it too!"
"Laura!" exclaimed Kitty, with horror, recoiling from her, while the
two men stood sheepishly. "Why, Laura Fenelby! If you say such a
thing I shall go right up and pack my clothes and go home!"
"What clothes?" asked Mr. Fenelby, meaningly. Kitty ignored the
insinuation.
"You three should not dare to look me in the face and talk about
smuggling," she declared. "You dare to accuse me. I would like to
have you explain about that box upstairs first."
Mr. Fenelby and Billy and Mrs. Fenelby paled. For one moment there
was perfect silence while Kitty, with folded arms, looked at them
scornfully. Then, with strange simultaneousness, all three opened
their mouths and said:
"I'll explain about that box!"
IX
BOBBERTS INTERVENES
Kitty stood scornfully triumphant awaiting the next words of the
guilty trio, and three more cowed and guilt-stricken smugglers never
faced an equally guilty accuser with such uncomfortable feelings.
Billy was sorry he had ever tried to fabricate the story about Mr.
Fenelby having asked him to bring the box of cigars home; Mr.
Fenelby wished he had left the set of Eugene Field's works at the
office, and Mrs. Fenelby was, perhaps, the most worried of all, for
she did not know whether to admit her guilt and own that she had
brought a set of Eugene Field into the house without paying the
duty, or to annihilate the accusing Kitty by declaring that Kitty
had a whole closet full of smuggled garments. It was a trying
situation.
In a drama this would have been the cue for the curtain to fall with
a rush, ending the act and leaving the audience a space to wonder
how the complication could ever be untangled, but on the Fenelby's
porch there was no curtain to fall. So Bobberts fell instead.
He raised his pink hands and his head, rolled over in the porch
rocker in which he had been lying, and fell to the porch floor with
a bump. A curtain could not have ended the scene more quickly. Never
in his life had he been so cruelly treated as by this faithless
rocking-chair. He had reposed his simple faith in it, and it threw
him to earth, and then rocked joyously across him. His voice arose
in short, piercing yells. He turned purple with rage and pain. He
drew up his knees and simply, soulfully screamed. Up and down the
street neighbors came out upon their verandas, napkins in hand, and
stared wonderingly at the Fenelby porch. Kitty and Billy stood like
a wooden Mr. and Mrs. Noah in the toy ark, but Mr. Fenelby and Laura
sprang to Bobberts' aid and gathered him into their arms, ordering
each other to do things, and soothing Bobberts at the same time.
The Fenelby Domestic Tariff was entirely forgotten.
"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby, when Bobberts had tapered off from
the yells of rage to the steady weeping of injured feelings. "What
are you standing there like two sticks for? Can't you see poor,
dear little Bobberts is nearly killed? Why don't you do something?"
There was really nothing they could do. Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby made
such a compact crowd around Bobberts that no one else could squeeze
in, but Kitty dropped on her knees and edged up to the crowd,
murmuring, "Poor Bobberts! Poor Bobberts!"
Billy stood awkwardly, feeling in his pockets. He had an idea that
if he could find something to jingle before Bobberts it might be
about the right thing to do, but his hand touched one of the
smuggled cigars, and he withdrew it as if his fingers had been
burnt. This poor, weeping child was the Bobberts he had been
cheating of a few pennies. He touched Kitty diffidently on the
shoulder.
"Can't I do something?" he asked, pleadingly, and Kitty took pity on
him.
"Heat some water; very hot!" she said. She was not a baby expert,
but she felt that hot water would not be a bad thing to have handy
in a case like this. There is one good thing about hot water--if it
is not wanted it does no harm, for if allowed to stand it will get
cool again--and it pleased her to be able to order Billy to do
something. The prompt and eager manner in which he obeyed the order
pleased her still more. He ran all the way to the kitchen.
Half an hour later he cautiously carried a dish-pan full of water to
the porch and stared in amazement at the place where he had left
Bobberts and his parents. They were gone! He felt that he had not
been quite as quick with the water as he might have been, for the
only burner that had been lighted on the gas range was the
"simmerer," and that had only a flame as large around as a dollar,
and not strong, but he had not dared to light another. He had a dim
remembrance that stoves of some kind sometimes exploded, and he did
not want to risk an explosion by tampering with an unknown stove. He
felt that a stove and Bobberts both exploding at the same time would
have been more than the Fenelbys could have borne. As he stood
holding the pan of hot water well away from him the sound of the
click of knives and forks on china came to him through the open
window. Only a little of the hot water spilled over the edge of the
pan upon his legs as he opened the screen door and entered the hall.
He walked carefully, bent over and holding the pan at arm's length,
and as he entered the dining room the three diners looked up at him
in open mouthed surprise. They had forgotten all about Billy.
"Here it is," said Billy, with modest pride and an air of
accomplishment. "It is good and hot. I let it get as hot as it
could."
The blank amazement that had dulled the face of Kitty gave way to a
look of understanding and a smile as she remembered having ordered
him to get hot water, but the amazement on the faces of Mr. Fenelby
and his wife remained as blank as ever.
"It is hot water," said Billy, explaining. "I heated it. What shall
I do with it?"
The sodden surprise on Mr. Fenelby's face melted away. A dish-pan
full of hot water served during the course of a cold dinner had
amusing elements, and Mr. Fenelby smiled. So did Mrs. Fenelby.
Everybody smiled but Billy. He was serious.
"Well," he said, with a touch of impatience, "these handles are hot.
I can't stand here holding them all night. What do you want me to do
with this hot water?"
"What do you want to do with it?" asked Mr. Fenelby. "What do you
usually do with a panful of hot water when you have one? You might
take a bath, if you want to. You will find the bath-room at the top
of the stairs, first turn to the left. Run along, and don't stay in
the water too long."
Mrs. Fenelby and Kitty laughed, and Mr. Fenelby smiled broadly at
his own humor. Billy blushed.
"I heated it for Bobberts," he said, stiffly.
"Thank you!" said Mr. Fenelby. "But we won't boil Bobberts this
evening, Billy. Not just now, anyhow. We like to oblige, but we
can't be expected to boil our only son just because you turn up in
the middle of a meal with a pan of hot water. If we ever boil him it
will not be in the middle of a meal. Please don't insist."
Billy reddened to the roots of his hair. Mrs. Fenelby was laughing
openly and Tom was pleased with the excellence of his joke. Billy
raised his head angrily and strode out of the room, and Kitty, from
whose face the smile had fled, started up with blazing eyes.
"I think you are horrid!" she cried, turning to Bobberts' laughing
parents. "I think you ought to thank him instead of making fun of
him. I told him to heat the water, because Bobberts was hurt, and I
thought you might want it, and because he was trying to be helpful
and--and nice, you sit there and laugh at him. If you want to make
fun of anyone, make fun of me! I suppose you will!"
"Why, Kitty!" cried Mrs. Fenelby.
"Yes!" cried Kitty. "I suppose you will. That seems to be what you
want to do--make your guests as uncomfortable as you can. You don't
want us here. You make up this foolish tariff to make trouble, and
you drive away your servants so that we feel that we are imposing on
you, and you make fun of us when we try to be helpful--"
"Why, Kitty!" exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby again.
"You do!" Kitty declared. "I'm surprised at you, Laura Fenelby, I
am indeed. I'm surprised that you should let your husband dictate
to you, and make you his slave with his tariffs and such things, but
you like it. Very well, be his slave if you want to. But I can see
one thing--Billy and I are not wanted in this house. You and your
husband just want to be alone and enjoy your selfish house. The best
thing Billy and I can do is to go. I can see very plainly now,
Laura, that you got up that silly tariff just to drive us out of the
house. Very well, we will go!"
She turned from the amazed parents of Bobberts to the amazed Billy
who was standing in the hall with the inoffensive pan of hot water
in his hands, and put her hand on his arm.
"Come!" she said. "I am going up to pack my trunks."
For a moment after the shock the Fenelbys sat in surprised silence,
looking blankly each into the other's face, and then Laura spoke.
"Tom," she gasped, "they mustn't leave this way!"
Mr. Fenelby slowly folded his napkin, and as slowly placed it in the
ring. Then he laid the ring gently on the table and arranged his
knife and fork side by side on his plate, as prescribed by the guide
books to good manners.
"She said she was going up stairs to pack her trunks," he said with
deliberation. "To pack her trunks. If she has enough to pack into
trunks, Laura, there has been smuggling going on in this house."
Mrs. Fenelby folded her napkin as slowly as her husband had just
folded his, and she kept her eyes on it as she answered.
"Tom," she said, "do you think it is quite the time now to talk of
smuggling? Wouldn't it be better if you went up and apologized to
Kitty and Billy?"
"Laura," said Mr. Fenelby, "it is always time to talk of smuggling.
The foundation of the home is order; order can only be maintained
by living up to such rules as are made; the Fenelby Domestic Tariff
is more than a rule, it is a law. If we let the laws of our home be
trampled under foot by whoever chooses the whole thing totters,
sways and falls. The home is wrecked and sorrow and dissention come.
Dissention leads to misunderstanding and divorce. That is why I am
strict. That is why I refuse to let two strangers wreck our whole
lives by ignoring the Domestic Tariff. If they do not like the laws
of our little Commonwealth, they can go. The door is open!"
"Thomas Fenelby," said his wife, "I think you are horrid! I never
knew anything so unhospitable in my life. It isn't as if no one in
this house ever broke that tariff law except Kitty and Billy; you
haven't explained about that box--"
Mr. Fenelby reddened and he looked at his wife sternly.
"Do you mean the box I found hidden under the eaves in the attic,
addressed to you, my dear?" he asked with cutting sweetness, and
Mrs. Fenelby, in turn, grew red and gasped.
"You are mean!" she exclaimed. "I think you are not--not nice to go
poking around under eaves and things, trying to find some blame to
throw up to your wife! I wish you had never thought of your horrid
tariff, and--and--"
She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and a minute later went out of
the room and up the stairs. Mr. Fenelby heard her cross the floor
above him, and heard the creaking of the bed as she threw herself
upon it. He looked sternly out of the dining room window awhile.
Never, never had his wife spoken such words to him before. If she
wished to act so it was very well--she should be taught a lesson.
She was vexed because she had been caught in a palpable case of
smuggling herself. Now he--
He arose and took Bobberts' bank from the mantel; from his pocket he
drew a small collection of loose change and one or two small bills,
and saving out one dime he fed the rest into Bobberts' bank. For a
few more minutes he looked gloomily from the window, and then he
went gloomily forth and dropped into the hammock.
With cautious steps Billy Fenelby stole down the stairs and bending
over the rail looked into the dining room. It was empty, and he
tip-toed down the rest of the way and, glancing from side to side
like one fearing discovery, dropped a handful of loose coins into
Bobberts' bank. As he ascended the stairs his face wore the look of
a man who is square with the world.
As she heard the door close upon him when he entered his room Mrs.
Fenelby rose from her bed and wiped her eyes. She took her purse
from the dresser and opened it, then paused for she heard a door
opening slowly. She heard light steps cross the hall and descend the
stairs, but she could not see Kitty. She could only hear the faint
click of coin dropping upon coin in the dining room below her. She
knew that Kitty was feeding Bobberts' education fund, and she
waited until she heard Kitty's door close again, and then she went
down and poured into the opening of the bank the remains of her
week's household allowance, and began the task of clearing the
table. As she worked the tears splattered down upon the plates as
she bent over them. How could Tom be so cruel and unfeeling?
Doubtless he was enjoying the thought of having hurt her feelings,
if he had not already forgotten all about her, taking his ease in
the hammock.
She glanced out of the window at him. There he lay, but as she
looked he raised his hands and struck himself twice on the head
with his clenched fists and groaned like a man in misery. For a
moment he lay still and then once more he struck himself on the
head, and drawing up his legs kicked them out angrily, like a
naughty child in a tantrum. He was _not_ having the most blissful
moments of his life. Once more he drew up his legs and kicked, and
the hammock turned over and dumped him on the floor of the porch.
"Ouch!" he exclaimed quite normally, and looking up he saw his wife,
and smiled. She not only smiled, but laughed, somewhat hysterically
but forgivingly.
X
TARIFF REFORM
If a man really likes to wipe dishes, while his wife washes them,
there is no better time for friendly confidences, and for the
arrangement of difficulties. Diplomatists win their greatest battles
for peace at the dinner-table, because the dinner-table gives
abundant opportunity for the "interruption politic." When the
argument reaches the fatal climax, and the final ultimatum is
delivered, a boiled potato may still avert war: "Now, me lud, I ask
you finally, will your government, or won't it? That is the
question," and from the opposing diplomat come the words, "Beg
pardon, your ludship, but will you kindly pass me the salt? Thanks!
Don't you think the butter is a little strong?" and war is averted.
Postponed, at least.