I
Had we not been so anxious about our dear Tish last summer, I dare
say it would never have happened. But even Charlie Sands noticed when
he came to our cottage at Lake Penzance for the week-end that she was
distinctly not her old self.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “She’s lost her pep, or something. I’ve
been here two days and she hasn’t even had a row with Hannah, and I
must say that fuss with old Carpenter yesterday really wasn’t up to her
standard at all.”
Old Carpenter is a fisherman, and Tish having discovered that our motor
boat went better in reverse than forward, he had miscalculated our
direction and we had upset him.
As it happened, that very evening Tish herself confirmed Charlie’s
fears by asking about Aggie’s Cousin Sarah Brown’s Chelsea teapot.
“I think,” she said, “that a woman of my age should have a hobby; one
that will arouse interest at the minimum of physical exertion. And the
collection of old china----”
“Oh, Tish!” Aggie wailed, and burst into tears.
“I mean it,” said Tish, “I have reached that period of my life which
comes to every woman, when adventure no longer lurks around the next
corner. By this I do not refer necessarily to amorous affairs, but to
dramatic incidents. I think more than I did of what I eat. I take a nap
every day. I am getting old.”
“Never!” said Aggie valiantly.
“No? When I need my glasses nowadays to see the telephone directory!”
“But they’re printing the names smaller, Tish.”
“Yes, and I dare say my arm is getting shorter also,” she returned with
a sad smile. She pursued the subject no further, however, but went on
knitting the bedroom slippers which are her yearly contribution to the
Old Ladies’ Home, leaving Charlie Sands to gaze at her thoughtfully as
he sipped his blackberry cordial.
But the fact is that Tish had outgrown the cottage life at Penzance,
and we all knew it. Save for an occasional golf ball from the links
breaking a window now and then, and the golfers themselves who brought
extra shoes done up in paper for us to keep for them, paying Hannah
something to put them on the ice, there was nothing to rouse or
interest her.
Her mind was as active as ever; it was her suggestion that a clothespin
on Aggie’s nose might relieve the paroxysms of her hay fever, and she
was still filled with sentiment. It was her own idea on the anniversary
of Mr. Wiggins’ demise to paint the cottage roof a fresh and verdant
green as a memorial to him, since he had been a master roofer by
profession.
But these had been the small and simple annals of her days. To all
outward seeming, until the night of the treasure hunt, our Tish was
no longer the Tish who with our feeble assistance had captured the
enemy town of X---- during the war, or held up the band of cutthroats
on Thundercloud, or led us through the wilderness of the Far West. An
aëroplane in the sky or the sound of the Smith boys racing along in
their stripped flivver may have reminded her of brighter days, but she
said nothing.
Once, indeed, she had hired a horse from the local livery stable and
taken a brief ride, but while making a short cut across the Cummings
estate the animal overturned a beehive. Although Tish, with her
customary presence of mind, at once headed the terrified creature for
the swimming pool, where a number of persons were bathing and sunning
themselves in scanty apparel about the edge, the insects forsook the
beast the moment horse and rider plunged beneath the surface and
a great many people were severely stung. Indeed, the consequences
threatened to be serious, for Tish was unable to get the horse out
again and it was later necessary to bring a derrick from Penzance to
rescue him. But her protests over the enormous bills rendered by the
livery man were feeble, indeed, compared to the old days.
“Twenty dollars!” she said. “Are you claiming that that animal, which
should have been able to jump over a beehive without upsetting it, was
out ten hours?”
“That’s my charge,” he said. “Walk, trot and canter is regular rates,
but swimming is double, and cheap at that. The next time you want to go
out riding, go to the fish pier and I reckon they’ll oblige you. You
don’t need a horse, lady. What you want is a blooming porpoise.”
Which, of course, is preposterous. There are no porpoises in Lake
Penzance.
She even made the blackberry cordial that year, a domestic task usually
left to Aggie and myself, but I will say with excellent results. For
just as it was ready for that slight fermentation which gives it its
medicinal quality, a very pleasant young man came to see us, having for
sale a fluid to be added to homemade cordials and so on, which greatly
increased their bulk without weakening them.
“But how can one dilute without weakening?” Tish demanded suspiciously.
“I would not call it dilution, madam. It is really expansion.”
It was a clear colorless liquid with a faintly aromatic odor, which
he said was due to juniper in it, and he left us a small bottle for
experimental purposes.
With her customary caution, our dear Tish would not allow us to try it
until it had been proved, and some days later Hannah reporting a tramp
at the back door, she diluted--or rather expanded--a half glass of
cordial, gave him some cookies with it, and we all waited breathlessly.
It had no ill effect, however. The last we saw of the person he was
quite cheery; and, indeed, we heard later that he went into Penzance,
and getting one of the town policemen into an alley, forced him to
change trousers with him. As a matter of record, whether it was Tish’s
efforts with the cordial itself, or the addition of the expansion
matter which we later purchased in bulk and added, I cannot say. But I
do know that on one occasion, having run out of gasoline, we poured a
bottle of our blackberry cordial into the tank of the motor boat and
got home very nicely indeed. I believe that this use of fruit juices
has not heretofore been generally known.
Tish, I know, told it to Mr. Stubbs, the farmer who brought us our
poultry, advising him to try cider in his car instead of feeding his
apples to his hogs. But he only stared at her.
“Feed apples to hogs these days!” he said. “Why, lady, my hogs ain’t
seen an apple for four years! They don’t know there is such a thing.”
Occupied with these small and homely duties then, we went on along the
even tenor of our way through July and August, and even into September.
In August, Charlie Sands sent us a radio, and thereafter it was our
custom at 7:20 A.M. to carry our comforters into Tish’s bedroom and do
divers exercises in loose undergarments.
It is to this training that I lay Tish’s ability to go through the
terrible evening which followed with nothing more serious than a crack
in a floating rib.
And in September Charlie Sands himself week-ended with us, as I have
said; with the result of a definite break in our monotony and a revival
of Tish’s interest in life which has not yet begun to fade.
Yet his visit itself was uneventful enough. It was not until Mrs.
Ostermaier’s call on Saturday evening that anything began to develop.
I remember the evening most distinctly. Our dear Tish was still in her
dressing gown, after a very unpleasant incident of the morning, when
she had inflated a pair of water wings and gone swimming. Unluckily,
when some distance out she had endeavored to fasten the water wings
with a safety pin to her bathing garments and the air at once began to
escape. When Charlie Sands reached the spot only a few bubbles showed
where our unfortunate Tish had been engulfed. She had swallowed a great
deal of water, and he at once suggested bailing her out.
“By and large,” he said, “I’ve been bailing you out for the last ten
years. Why not now?”
But she made no response save to say that she had swallowed a fish.
“Get me a doctor,” she said thickly. “I can feel the thing wriggling.”
“Doctor nothing!” he told her. “What you need is a fisherman, if that’s
the case.”
But she refused to listen to him, saying that if she was meant to be an
aquarium she would be one; and seeing she was firm, he agreed.
“Very well,” he said cheerfully. “But why not do the thing right while
you’re about it? How about some pebbles and a tadpole or two?”
The result of all this was that Tish, although later convinced there
was no fish, was in an uncertain mood that evening as we sat about the
radio. She had, I remember, got Chicago, where a lady at some hotel
was singing By the Waters of Minnetonka. Turning away from Chicago,
she then got Detroit, Michigan, and a woman there was singing the same
thing.
Somewhat impatiently, she next picked up Atlanta, Georgia, where a
soprano was also singing it, and the same thing happened with Montreal,
Canada. With a strained look, our dear Tish then turned to the national
capital, and I shall never forget her expression when once more the
strains of Minnetonka rang out on the evening air.
With an impatient gesture, she shoved the box away from her, and the
various batteries and so on fell to the floor. And at that moment Mrs.
Ostermaier came in breathless, and said that she and Mr. Ostermaier had
just got Denver, and heard it quite distinctly.
“A woman was singing,” she said. “Really, Miss Carberry, we could hear
every word. She was singing----”
“The Waters of Minnetonka?” asked Tish.
“Why, however did you guess it?”
It was probably an accident, but as Tish got up suddenly, her elbow
struck the box itself, and the box fell with a horrible crash. Tish
never even looked at it, but picked up her knitting and fell to work
on a bedroom slipper, leaving Mrs. Ostermaier free to broach her plan.
For, as it turned out, she had come on an errand. She and Mr.
Ostermaier wished to know if we could think of any way to raise money
and put a radio in the state penitentiary, which was some miles away
along the lake front.
“Think,” she said, “of the terrible monotony of their lives there!
Think of the effect of the sweetness disseminated by Silver Threads
Among the Gold or By the Waters of----”
“Mr. Wiggins always said that music had power to soothe the savage
breast,” Aggie put in hastily. “Have you thought of any plan?”
“Mr. Ostermaier suggested that Miss Tish might think of something. She
is so fertile.”
But Tish’s reaction at first was unfavorable.
“Why?” she said. “We’ve made our jails so pleasant now that there’s a
crime wave so people can get into them.” But she added, “I’m in favor
of putting one in every prison if they’d hire a woman to sing The
Waters of Minnetonka all day and all night. If that wouldn’t stop this
rush to the penitentiaries, nothing will.”
On the other hand, Charlie Sands regarded the idea favorably. He sat
sipping a glass of cordial and thinking, and at last said:
“Why not? Think of an entire penitentiary doing the morning daily
dozen! Or laying out bridge hands, according to radio instructions!
Broaden ’em. Make ’em better citizens. Send ’em out fit to meet the
world again. Darned good idea--Silver Threads Among the Gold for the
burglars and Little Brown Jug for the bootleggers. Think of Still as
the Night for the moonshiners, too, and the bedtime stories for the
cradle snatchers. Why, it’s got all sorts of possibilities!”
He then said to leave it to him and he would think up something; and
falling to work on the radio, soon had it in operation again. His
speech had evidently had a quieting effect on Tish, and when the
beautiful strains of The Waters of Minnetonka rang out once more she
merely placed her hands over her ears and said nothing.
It was after his departure on Monday that he wrote us the following
note, and succeeded in rousing our dear Tish:
“_Beloved Maiden Ladies_: I have been considering the problem of the
radio for our unfortunate convicts. How about a treasure hunt--à la
Prince of Wales--to raise the necessary lucre? I’ll write the clews
and bury a bag of pennies--each entrant to pay five dollars, and the
profits to go to the cause.
“Oil up the old car and get out the knickerbockers, for it’s going to
be a tough job. And don’t forget, I’m betting on you. Read the Murders
in the Rue Morgue for clews and deductive reasoning. And pass me the
word when you’re ready.
Devotedly, C.S.”
“P.S. My usual terms are 20 per cent, but will take two bottles of
cordial instead. Please mark ‘Preserves’ on box.