"This paying for deceased poultry," said Tom, "is getting monotonous.
First there were those pedigreed geese up on the river, and now Henry. I
know Henry never cost as much as the Janeways say he did."
"I think we're paying for all it cost to send him to prep school and
college," suggested Louise, who was staying over a day. "You forget that
Henry was intellectual."
"He was tough," agreed Tom, "if that's any sign! So was paying for him."
"Oh, Tommy dear!" said Winona penitently. "Henry was really my fault. I
oughtn't to let you join in with me. I can pay for Henry very well
alone."
"I think I see you!" said Tom. "No, Winnie, united we stand, divided we
fall. I help pay for Henry--see you later--just remembered how late it
is."
He bolted upstairs, leaving Winona, Louise and Billy on the porch
staring at each other.
"What's struck Tom?" asked Billy. "First time I ever knew him to be in a
hurry."
"Why, I don't know," said Louise. "I thought you two generally hunted
together."
"Not to-night," said Billy. He vaulted the railing casually, and walked
out into the middle of the lawn, where he could see Tom's lighted
window. "He's up there with all the lights on, walking the floor as if
he had something on his conscience, trying to tie all his neckties, one
after another," reported Billy. "There--there goes the third one. He's
going to try a red one now."
"I know what it is," said Winona, seeing a light. "I've just remembered.
He's going to call on a girl. He's been going to for all week, and just
got braced up to it. He's been wearing me out all day, asking me for
things to talk to her about. I suppose he's trying to decide on the
necktie that matches his socks best."
"But, great Scott, he's been to see girls before!" protested Billy.
"I've been along when he's been seeing girls, and fellows, and even old
gentlemen, and he never took it so hard."
"It's a very particular, grown-up call," explained Winona, "with a
card-case and a cane, and everything like that."
"What's the cane for?" asked Billy, who had come back to his seat on the
porch. "Girl collecting them?"
"I think it must be for moral support," put in Louise.
"I didn't know he had one," said Billy. "Where did he get it?"
"Christmas present last year," explained Winona briefly. "Billy, don't
you wish we were all back at Wampoag, having a moonlight swim?"
"I certainly do," said Billy. "Not but that your porch is nice, too," he
added with the politeness he never seemed to forget.
Before they could lament camp life any further, Tom rushed down the
stairs.
"Winnie! Winnie! Where's my blue scarf?" he called from inside the front
door.
"On Louise," Winona called back promptly. "Don't you remember, you asked
her if she didn't want to wear it with her sailor-suit?"
"Can I have it, Lou?" he asked, coming out. "I wouldn't ask you, but it
just matches my hatband."
"Certainly you can have it," said Louise, with chilly politeness,
unfastening it and handing it to him.
"Good-evening, Mr. Merriam," said Billy, grinning, and rising in order
to make a very low bow. "I never thought you were this far on the way to
being a perfect lady, old boy--Mr. Merriam, I mean."
"Going to call on an awfully correct girl," said Tom off-handedly. "I
say, Lou, can I have that blue class-pin of yours?"
"Certainly," said Louise again, still more coldly, detaching it and
holding it out. "Anything else you think you'd like?"
"Not that I can think of," said Tom, taking the class-pin. "That's a
good old Lou," he ended, adding insult to injury. Then he sat down and
pulled out his mother's celluloid memorandum tablets. He laid them on
his knee and looked at them earnestly, as he adjusted the tie and the
class-pin.
"Did you think of any more things for me to say after I landed the
California Exposition on her?" he asked his sister.
Winona looked over at Billy to see if he saw the funny side of it. There
was no use looking at Louise, for in her present sulky frame of mind she
would not have seen anything funny in a whole joke-book.
"How would the next election do?" she suggested gravely.
"M-m--all right," said Tom, entering it. "That won't last forever,
though, because all you can ever do is guess which man will get it. I
think you might help a fellow out, Lou. You're generally so clever."
"Ask her how she likes her hats trimmed," said Louise scornfully,
without turning around to him.
"Oh, no," said Tom, "that's too silly a question." But he put it down
just the same. "Let's see. That ought to carry me on till nearly
nine.... Caesar! It's time I went! Don't mind if I go off and leave you,
do you Bill?"
"Not a bit!" said Billy calmly. "I'm all right. But"--Billy's eyes
twinkled--"don't you really think you ought to wear your tuxedo, old
fellow? Much more correct, you know. I saw it in a Hints to Best
Dressers' column awhile ago. It said that no true gentleman was without
evening clothes in the evening."
Tom looked uneasy, but he was firm.
"I won't get into that thing for anything less than a dance or a
hand-made clerical dinner," he said, thoughtlessly jamming his hat down
over one ear the way he usually wore it, then putting it straight with a
jerk. "Great Scott! I must hurry!"
"My ears and whiskers! The Duchess! Won't I catch it if I'm late!"
quoted Louise scornfully from Alice in Wonderland, as Tom dived down the
steps.
"What on earth's got into Tom!" asked Billy. "The idea of doing that
because you like it!"
"I don't know," said Winona. "It is queer, isn't it?"
"Going off acting like he was all grown up!" mused Billy, still lost in
wonder at such a waste of a perfectly good evening.
"I do wish you wouldn't always say 'like' for 'as if,' Billy,"
interrupted Louise sharply. "I hate it."
"We always say it that way down home," said Billy.
"That's no reason for your doing it here! Being born in China doesn't
make it good manners for you to eat with chopsticks," said Louise,
walking into the house and slamming the screen-door behind her.
"Can't Ah help yo' find yo' tempah, Louise?" Billy called teasingly
after her, with a purposely exaggerated Southern accent. There was no
answer.
"You'd be cross, too, if you were Louise," Winona defended her friend.
"One of the things she stayed down from camp over to-night for was that
she and Tom were going off to kodak some cloud effects for a magazine
prize. And she was going to try to get some photographs that would count
in Camp Fire work, too. And Tom's walked off, forgetting all about it."
"Why didn't you remind him?" asked Billy sensibly.
"Louise wouldn't let me. She said she'd go straight back if I did."
"Well, she needn't have taken it out on me," said Billy plaintively. "I
didn't break any engagements. I suppose she has a red-haired temper."
* * * * *
Meanwhile Louise, after she banged the screen-door, had gone straight
through the house to the back. Mrs. Merriam was in the living-room,
which prevented her crying there. She was very much hurt at Tom's
forgetfulness. They had been chums for a long time, and this particular
expedition after cloud effects had been something they had planned long
before the Scouts' camp broke up. And now Tom had gone gayly off,
forgetting all about it. It really was horrid.
Crying on a bed is hot work in summer, so she decided to go out back and
do it. She sat on the porch, put her arms on the back of a chair and
began to cry.
But circumstances seemed to be against her. Puppums, who had been asleep
under a chair, got up, yawned, sauntered across the porch, and sat down
by her. Then he proceeded to whine for her to turn around, make a lap,
and take him up into it.
"Oh, do stop!" said Louise indignantly, when the whining had gone on
steadily for some minutes. But if you took any notice of Puppums he
merely argued that a little more work would get him what he wanted, and
went on begging. In the present instance he answered Louise by lifting
his nose further up in the air, and howling, as if he wished to assure
her that he felt for her.
"You mean old dog!" said Louise, jumping up. "I'll settle you!" Puppums
was very much pleased. He had an optimistic disposition, and he thought
it was a game. He ran around and around the porch, finally, when he
began to see that Louise was in earnest, hiding under the ice-chest,
where he knew nobody could follow him. Louise stopped short, and eyed
the ice-box. It occurred to her that she was thirsty.
"This is what you might call being guided," said she, and opening the
lid, looked in. She found a bag of lemons, a bunch of bananas, and she
thought she remembered where Winona kept the bottled cherries and the
cookies. She went into the kitchen and began work, and in a very little
while was on her way back to the front porch with a tray, designed to
show her remorse for being cross, piled with cookies and fruit lemonade.
Mrs. Merriam, to whom she offered the first glass, pronounced it very
good indeed, and sent her on her way. Puppums danced wildly about her,
with the idea that she was clearing a table, and he might get bones.
Winona and Billy were still talking as placidly as if Tom had not been
wrestling with a formal call, and Louise with a bad temper, for the last
twenty minutes.
"Cookies--oh, and fruit lemonade! Louise, you dear!" cried Winona, while
Billy took the tray and put it on a table.
"Won't you have some, Billy? I know you like it, and--and I _do_ like
your Southern accent," she added in a rush.
"Thank you, Louise," said Billy. "I like your accent, too--and your
fruit lemonade--very much."
They both laughed. "Let's bury the hatchet," he added. "Louise, these
certainly are fine cookies."
The three were still sitting comfortably over their refreshments, even
Puppums crunching cakes contentedly in a corner, when Tom hurried up the
steps and banged himself down in a chair. His hat was jammed to one side
in the old unceremonious fashion, his gloves had vanished, and even his
cane was nowhere to be seen.
"Have some," said Billy tactfully before Tom could say anything. They
pushed the cakes toward him, and poured him some lemonade in Winona's
glass, and after he seemed less gloomy they got him to talk.
"Tell us all about it," said Winona soothingly.
"Nothing to tell!" said Tom in something rather like a growl.
"Have another cooky, and tell us all about it," repeated his sister in a
persuasive voice. And after awhile, when he had had some more cookies
and another glass of lemonade, he told them, gradually.
"Well, I sent in my card, of course," he began. "Asked for Miss Davis."
"Of course!" said Winona; for her brother's usual custom was to call up
from the sidewalk, "I'm coming over to-night," and then to walk
unceremoniously in whenever he thought of it, that evening.
"I did that all right, thank goodness!" said Tom. "The maid kept me
waiting about a year, with a copy of Snowbound, and a Gems from
Shakespeare, and a pug-dog made out of plaster, to amuse me. The Davises
never seem to sit around in their rooms and on their porches like other
people. Just as I got to the point of thinking I'd better go back home
_Mrs._ Davis walked in. I was so surprised at seeing her, instead of
Elsie, that I couldn't think of a blessed thing to say--so I fished up
this!"
He jerked the tablets out of his pocket and threw them to Winona.
"Keep 'em away from me," he said. "I never want to see the blessed
things again. First thing I found was 'Civil War.' I'd picked out that
for a start anyway--thought it would be nice and general, and we had it
in History last term, so I knew a lot about it. You'd have thought that
would have lasted awhile, wouldn't you?"
"Seeing that the real thing lasted four years or so, I think it might
have," answered Billy.
"Not a bit of it!" said Tom mournfully. "Mrs. Davis turned out to have
had a grand-uncle or something in it, and she said it was a painful
subject. I don't think she ever had a grand-uncle. I believe she didn't
know anything about it, and just invented the old fellow to get out of
talking about it!"
"Mercy, what suspicions!" said Winona, laughing. "You certainly have
nearly ruined your lovely disposition. Never mind, Tommy, I sympathize
with you. What did you tackle next?"
"Tariff-reform, I think," said Tom.
"What is tariff-reform?" asked Winona. "I never could understand it
exactly."
"Don't ask me to say it all over again!" begged Tom. "I was getting
anxious by that time for fear I wouldn't have subjects enough left to
use on Elsie. You know she isn't much of a talker. But I had to say
something, and Mrs. Davis didn't, and I couldn't think of anything but
this foolish book. Mrs. Davis didn't seem to care much about
tariff-reform, either, so I gave that up and looked at the list again,
and chose 'Weather.' She did warm up a little at that. But the best
weather won't last forever, and you could just hear the silence bump
every little while.
"Then I got desperate, and used up Politics and Canoeing and the
California Fair, and all the rest. Folks, I finished off every last
thing I was going to talk to Elsie about, before she ever appeared!
Except about trimming hats--that seemed such a foolish thing to ask a
woman that old about."
"They discussed Measles and Mice, and Music, and everything else that
began with an M," quoted Louise from her favorite Alice in Wonderland.
"Don't mind her," said Billy as soberly as he could. "Just go on. Did
Elsie Davis ever come down at all?"
"Yes," said Tom, "she did. Just as I finished my last subject, if you
please! She seemed to be dressed for a party, but she said she wasn't.
She sat down at the other end of the room, and tried to see if she
couldn't keep as still as her mother. Mrs. Davis stayed right there,
too, and smiled like an alligator--and there was I without an idea in my
head or on the memorandum!"
"Didn't they even show you the photograph album?" inquired Louise,
forgetting to be offended.
"They wouldn't talk, I tell you!"
"Well, what _did_ you do?" asked Louise.
Tom grinned a little, shamefacedly.
"Well--I simply yanked out that old tablet, and began at Civil War
again. I said 'As I was just saying to your mother!' and I gave her
every subject over!"
His hearers howled, and after a minute Tom himself joined in. "Did it
work better this time?" asked Winona at last, wiping her eyes.
"Not a work," said Tom cheerfully, reaching for the last cooky. "That
is, all but the hat one. That was clever of you, Lou. She got almost
human over that, and began to talk about how many engagements she
had--had to break half of them. And I said 'I don't believe in breaking
dates,' and suddenly I remembered the one with you to take the
pictures--and I left then and there, like a streak of lightning. I left
my cane--I don't care--she can have it to remember me by. Louise, I owe
you an apology the size of the house. Why didn't you remind me about
those snapshots?"
"It's not too late," said Louise amiably. "The moon's just about right,
now."
Tom went into the house after the cameras, sending his hat flying up to
the hat-tree, followed by his gloves.
"Let's go, too," said Billy.
"All right," said Winona. She leaned back, and laughed, as they waited
for the others to come out.
"I don't believe Tom will try any more formal calls till he's eighteen,
anyway," she remarked.
"It seems a pity, though," said Billy, getting up. "He wasted a
perfectly good cane!"