PEARS AND POETRY
Out toward the rear of the Judge's place there were garden paths set
about with horny fruit trees. A small plot of low-growing vegetables;
a strip of turf and a square of bean poles, made a jungle of kitchen
produce. As the season advanced, early summer pears of a soft yellow,
rosy-cheeked sort, began to hang in globules on the gray-flaked trees.
Here Colter sometimes worked under the Judge's snapped comments, or sat
at luncheon hour, preferring to eat here rather than in the comfortable
kitchen; and here, because of its almost jungle-like inaccessibility,
Sard, wandering from the house, would sometimes sit in the long
slumberous grasses and read. No one else cared much for the vegetable
plot nor for the yellow pears. Miss Aurelia stayed away on the ground
of wasps; the Judge found that the grass ruined his highly polished
boots; the cook and the waitresses had prejudices connected with
snakes, but Sard wondered if the "man on the place" ever saw, as she,
lying on her back, sometimes saw, the romance of this nook. The tent of
the blue sky, the silken whir of birds winging through, the syncopatic
throb of life in the grass all around, the Dervish-like attitude of the
old trees holding in faithful remembrance of youth and blossoms their
honey-filled pots of gold.
It was at the noon hour that the two girls came to pick up windfalls.
They waded through the long grass lamenting the great dark bruises on
the soft pear shapes.
"One smashing fall, and a whole lovely pear is spoiled," complained
Minga.
"Something like people," Sard thought; "one bruise makes us say a pear
is 'spoiled.' A person does some one thing that isn't right, and then
as it has with Terence, it spreads out and out and we think of him not
as having his other good qualities, but of just that one thing. Terence
might have been a good horse trainer or a good pianist or a ship's
captain or anything that needs recklessness and short swift purpose,
but he has done the one great awful thing that blots out all those
other qualities and that makes him for all time just a murderer."
The girl thoughtfully stood, her head drooping and her face deep with
a curious shadow of tragedy that was partly inherited. Sard felt sure
that somewhere in her ancestry were people who cared in some deep
way for humanity, who agonized and were sorry as she was for all the
sadness and madness of the world. The thought comforted her. Now, as
she picked up pear after pear and caught sight of Colter kneeling, busy
putting ashes around the roots of blackberry vines, she called to him.
"Are the blackberries ripening?"
Colter slowly rose. Minga, standing lost in a stare of curiosity,
saw the tall, straight, loosely-built figure and finely modeled face
with its thin and curiously yearning line from cheek to jaw. The eyes
of a hot blue were very intense, and the curious backward swath of
deep chestnut hair made an unusual setting for the chiseling of a face
that, while it was still young, was curiously marred with suffering,
yet had something of debonair quality that the girl was too immature
to analyze. Minga, hardly knowing why she did so, looked at the hands
closed easily on the garden rake. Even to her crude perception they
were disciplined hands with the signs of other than coarse toil upon
them.
Colter, in answering the question, advanced toward them. Both girls
were conscious of the clean, trim set effect of the working shirt
on his well-built frame; the tie was exact under his soft collar.
His voice when he spoke was low, with a weak, shaky emphasis, but he
answered Sard's question interestedly, "I think these berries could be
greatly improved. The vines have grown full of dead wood. I've done a
little cutting away, and perhaps with better soil treatment," he nodded
to the pears, "they're very fine just now. Judge Bogart wants me to
take a basket of them up to Mrs. Ralling. She lives on the upper road,
I think."
Perhaps there is nothing so surely indicative of certain training and
breeding as the pronunciation of proper names, particularly names that
have R and L in them. The foreigner in our country slurs these letters
with childlike confidence. The badly-bred person, ear untrained to
niceties of speech, furs the R and gobbles the L and chews his vowels.
These are the curious unconscious ways by which the American shows
his contempt of all distinguished nuances. Colter, so the two young
girls observed, did none of these things. Neither did he employ the
over-stressed nicety, the too careful method of the person who has
not always spoken correctly. What he had to say he said gently, half
thoughtfully. He stood looking at the girls without familiarity, but he
showed no constraint.
"I found your book, Miss Bogart." Colter drew the volume out of his
coat hanging on a pear tree.
Sard reached eagerly for it. "Then I did leave it out here!"
She turned to Minga. "I was reading it here the day before you
came--all this time in the grass, my 'Oxford Book of Verse,'" Sard, a
true book-lover, examined the little volume affectionately. "The leaves
don't seem to be hurt, and yet it rained two nights ago." She looked at
Colter. "You took care of it?"
He smiled in a pleased sort of way. "It was pretty well dampened, but
I found a way to dry it without streaking. I," he hesitated, "I know a
little about the treatment of wet paper." Colter looked off, knitting
his brows thoughtfully.
Minga, uninterested, was turning away, but the gardener nodded at the
book. "I've been reading some things in there I like. I wonder if you
would let me have it a little longer?"
There was dignity in the man's voice, yet a curious pleading note as if
he asked to be allowed to hold on to something very necessary to him.
"I--I once owned this book," he explained, then stood seemingly plunged
in thought, hardly noticing the two girls who stared at him.
"Surely." Sard made her free gesture as she handed him back the little
volume. "Keep it as long as you like," said the girl in friendly
fashion, "and, Colter----"
The man paused, respectfully attentive.
"Don't you want some other things to read?" Sard's eyes, friendly with
interest, were upon him. She was unconscious, sympathetic. "I know
Father would let you have anything in his library."
"I'll bet anything Judgie would not," was Minga's inner comment.
A curious look came over the man's face. As he stood there, the
sunlight on the russet hair, there came into his eyes a quality of
pleasure and bright response, of good will and courteous deference that
was the unmistakable look of personality. But it was momentary. The two
girls, young, not very well versed in subtle shades of breeding, stood
staring curiously at him. Then suddenly they saw the look transform; a
dull expression, a sort of hunted suspicion settled on the sensitive
features; and it was only a garden hand in baggy trousers and sun-faded
gray shirt that stood before them; something had faded out of the man.
Faltering at the mystery of it, Sard tried to repeat her offer. "I
meant," she said awkwardly, "you seemed to care so for books."
"Thank you," said Colter quietly. "I will leave your book in the
kitchen."
It was done with so final an air that there was nothing for the girl to
do but follow Minga out of the orchard, but before she left the garden
she raised her eyes with a swift inquiring look into the strong blue
ones fixed upon her. What she saw there puzzled and dismayed her. A
sudden thought set her heart to beating quickly. "Minga," called Sard
suddenly, "Minga, wait for me!" Startled like a bird, the girl sped out
of the little garden patch. The two hurried toward the house.
Minga put her hand on Sard's shoulder; a look of frank curiosity and
inquiry was on her face. "Where did he get that name Colter?" she
demanded.
"It was printed in the old wreck of a cap he wore, but he says it
is not his name. But he can't remember his name. Well," asked Sard
breathlessly, "well, what do you think?"
Minga faced the older girl solemnly. "Look here," she demanded, "what
is that creature--who is it--where did you pick it up?"
"Then you felt it, too," Sard demanded triumphantly. "You know he isn't
a common person?"
Minga shook her head solemnly. "I don't know what I know," obstinately,
"only it can't be the President of the United States, you know, and it
isn't any kind of foreigner and yet--yet he seems to feel as if he were
some punkins."
"Then you do see it, too?" Sard was exultant. She grasped the arm of
the other girl. "Come on up to my room in the tower and we can talk.
Don't let Aunt Reely join us."
"Are you girls making any arrangements for the Saturday night club
dance?" demanded that lady. Miss Aurelia was fresh in a white dress
with cuffs and collar of intricate embroidery. She wore a chain of
colorless coral beads. "This dance will not be like the others 'in
sweaters and tennis shoes,'" she warned them. "Mrs. Spoyd has been
working very hard to get the young people to appear well at the dances.
Now your frock, Sard, needs certain things done to it. Mrs. Spoyd
thinks you dress too old."
"Oh, gracious!" Sard threw out her hands in impatience. "My yellow
frock is good for a year yet. Don't bother, dear," she begged.
"Now, Sard, I'm not sure," Miss Aurelia demurred. "Last time you
wore it I thought--they wear them so short now. Shouldn't you
take it up a little? But I don't know. Of course, Mrs. Spoyd
thinks--I--she--you----" Minga interfered.
"Come in and look at my pretty little robe," she invited sweetly. "Such
a jazzy little affair! Straight off the Avenue."
Minga held up a small bunch of color. "Perky, isn't it?" she wanted to
know. "A little daring, as the lady said, but of course, if that's what
people are wearing----" Minga made a face of sweet inquiry.
The twin-petaled blue tunic with its girdle and shoulder straps of
flame color had two jeweled butterflies, one planted below Minga's
little thin chest, the other at the base of her supple back. This
confection could have been blown away with a sigh. Miss Aurelia heaved
that sigh.
"Of course, nowadays that cut under the arm is what they all wear--very
popular. Dearest," asked Miss Aurelia plaintively, "if it should grow
cold and you wanted an--er--under body or guimpe of any kind, I'm sure
I could lend you one. And you wear so little underneath----"
Minga, holding the dress close up to her, hung her dark curly head on
one side. "Rather nippy," she remarked with satisfaction. "You think it
shows too much of me? Oh, no," comforted Minga, "there's really quite
a good deal of me that doesn't show, but don't worry, Miss Aurelia,
nobody will be thinking about that. People aren't as curious about how
we're made as they used to be. We all know that we've got arms and legs
and chests and shoulders and ribs and things. It isn't interesting any
more!"
Saying this Minga unwittingly put her finger on what is half truth,
that is, that it is the Puritanical people of the world who emphasize
the harm that is done by vulgar thinking and dressing. The prudish
people think more about vulgarity than the vulgar themselves. The way
to kill such things is to ignore. The fashion, when it has become a
fashion, ceases to be notable, or even challenging. But its dubious
life is prolonged by those who seek to curb it.
Miss Aurelia, with many murmured doubts and misgivings, now took
Sard's frock out of its tissue paper and pasteboard box. With it
went a violet sash and violet slippers that Minga scrutinized rather
disparagingly. "She ought to have scarlet slippers and scarlet
stockings with that yellow."
"It wouldn't be good taste," said Sard shortly.
"But it would be noticed," replied her friend archly, "and you have
nice legs, Sard. Now, Aunt Reely," Minga held up an accusing finger,
"don't pretend you don't know that. You do know that Sard has nice
legs; so does Judgie, so does Dunstan. Why shouldn't the world know?"
So the conference on evening dress broke up amid Miss Aurelia's doubts
and fears and distressed sense of legs. Minga leading, the girls
climbed the tower room stairs, half restraining their giggles.
"If I come down to dinner in that frock Judgie will send me to bed
without my supper," Minga prophesied; "just the same, he will take
several long looks to be sure he is right." The restless tongue wagged
on until Minga became conscious that her comrade was not listening to
her. She glanced at Sard staring out of the window and remembered what
they had climbed up here for. "Now tell me about this queer critter
you've got out there. You call him Colter. I'd have been willing to bet
my engagement ring that was not his real name. His real name," said
Minga, "is Lancelot Humbug."
Sard, twisting the shade cord, slowly shook her head. "How do we know?"
she murmured. "He isn't anything we think he is. I mean what he's
supposed to be, but," she looked quickly at Minga, then away, "I've
come to the point where I'd rather not know anything. There might be
something awful." The girl shivered slightly. "How do I know?" she
repeated.
Sard turned eagerly to her friend. "Minga, do you get things, have them
come to you, without thinking? Do you ever just know things through and
through without being told, you know, sort of sense a thing?"
Minga, going to the dressing-table and taking the ivory-backed nail
buffer, searched about for some polishing powder. "When you start off
like that," the girl remarked, "I always find some light hand labor. Go
on, Sard, honey; I can get my nails beautifully done while you give me
the last Sard-slush."
"Oh, you fuss so over your nails," said the other girl irritably.
"I think it's bad taste, somehow. I can't bear these women who take
every moment they get to compare their hair and teeth and nails and
fingers; there's something monkey-like about it, sort of like savages.
I suppose," Sard laughed a little ironically, "if I had nothing else to
do but sit on the sand and smear oil on my skin I'd be interested in
such things, too."
"Whew!" whistled Minga imperturbably, "you are all rubbed up! You foam,
you fairly sizzle!" She went over to her friend and archly explained.
"It's only my sweet womanly concern for my lover--dearrrest--Tawny has
telephoned; only engaged six dances. I think he's slipping away from
me, and I don't want to lose him, not when they're doing that queer
'bubble and squeak step' and he's the only man who can do it. Tawny,"
explained Minga, "must see his ring glittering upon the most feminine
little hand in the world. You see I have a feeling that he wants to
pass me up for Cynthia or Gertrude; these two have been corresponding
with him, and he sent them candy last week--_Blaaaaaa!_"
Minga, with a gesture of disgust, dropped her eyes. She waved her
buffer in the air, fastening her eyes on her friend. "Does he think
he can fool me that way? Ahem, I'm talking." The other girl's head
was turned away, the eyes staring in troubled fixity at the river.
"If anyone were to fall out of the hearse and ask me," said Minga
with tender solemnity, "I should reply that I did not think you were
interested."
It was the quality of essential good nature in this girl that made her
loved. All Minga's idle words, her flippancies and inconsistencies
seemed to conceal some sound core of being that made her not willing to
wound. Now, she went over and brought her hand down on Sard's back.
"Minga!" The other started irritably and edged away.
"Oh, pshaw!" said the little person with bobbed hair. "Sard, don't be
silly; you act like Mannikin Maude, the Temperamental Tempest. Now in
good, plain American what's the matter?" Minga, turning her friend's
head to meet her eyes, pronounced her verdict.
"Say, look here, you've--you've been no good since that night on the
mountain with Watts Shipman; he snubbed you, I suppose, the way he
snubbed us all. Well, what do you care? He's only a silly old bachelor.
Pooh!" Minga addressed her finger nails, "I could eat into his heart
like a maggot if I only wanted to----" She slapped Sard on the back
again. "Ooooo--but you're gloomy. Brace up, cheer up, swell up, the
worst is yet to come!"
No one could withstand this absurd rallying. The girl at the window
smiled in spite of herself, but she shook her head.
"Minga," in a low voice, "that man out there is somebody!"
"Bllllaaaaa." Minga rolled in despairing disapprobation on the couch.
"I know it, but it's not my affair. I knew that was what was going on
in your head. Lawrence Multimillionaire, the missing heir of Deepcroft
Manor--Oh!" Minga wailed, "to think of you, Sard, the steady, the
highbrow, the blessed Damosel, to come to a thing like this! Honest,
I do think the movies turn our heads when--when we least expect it.
I thought I noticed that the garbage man wore a fraternity pin," she
jeered, "and surely the iceman quoted from the 'Rubaiyat' yesterday
morning."
But Sard would not catch at this mood, she only put aside the teasing
hand that tweaked her hair and fussed over her belt buckle. At last,
she said half under her breath, "If it is amnesia, if he himself
doesn't know who he is, where he belongs, think of the horror of that!"
There was a whir and chug of an arrested car on the drive under the
window. Dunstan with klaxon and voice hailed them. "Oh, you Minga,
put out your head. Say, goils, we've got a notion. The Gertrude bunch
is going to pull off that canoe trip up the Hackensack River this
afternoon--supper and a few ghost stories, toasted marshmallows, wit,
laughter, and moonlight. Want to go?"
Minga looked out, eyeing him critically. "Dunce, why do you wear a
sweater that color? It's awful for you; you should wear nothing but
soft tans and yellow to go with your doggy eyes."
"Humph!" said Dunstan, "that'll do for my doggy eyes." He got out and
went around to the back of the car and took out a kit of tools. "Now
I don't want to be bothered with the drool of an engaged flapper," he
declared; "but I say, do you want to go on this joy jump? I mean it."
The girls leaning out consulted each other with their eyes. "We were
going to wash our hair," demurred Sard, "and then we promised to make
fudge for Aunt Reely, and then," said Minga solemnly, "I promised to
show Aunt Reely a knitting stitch."
"Ha," the youth below looked up and grinned--"in other words you
don't want to go, or in still other words you don't like the Gertrude
and Cin combination. Oh, Sard, you're so noble and literary," the
brother said in mock admiration, "you express things so well.
You--she--I--they--it--he--she," Dunstan dropped the rôle of Aunt
Aurelia and concluded shortly, "Well, why should you go? Who wants a
couple of old hens washing their hair? The road-hog Gert and Cin'll do
all right."
Minga thought the thing over. "There's nothing to see on the
Hackensack," she misdoubted, "just old water and moss and trees and
things."
"Oh, ain't there?" said Dunstan, airily. "Well, I don't tell everything
to ladies who don't care for my society or my friends. I don't speak of
pink pearls, and here I raced all the way home and punctured a tire to
get you two old crones because I thought you'd like to go."
The two crones, slightly crestfallen, once more surveyed each other.
"Which men did you pick out for us?" at last inquired Sard.
Dunstan pushed back his cap; his brow was hot with his philanthropic
offer to promote a picnic.
"Well," he divulged, a little unwillingly, "of course, Gertrude wanted
me, and Cinny had a chap coming out on an afternoon train, dunno who,
and then we thought, well, the girls thought, that Sperry, the owl-eyed
lawyer, would do for you, Sard, and Minga, well, Balky Popham sort of
butted in and chose Minga."
"That settles it, you see." Minga grinned politely with all her little
teeth. "We're going to wash our hair!"
"Oh, my faith!" groaned the youth below. "Say, you two are a couple of
Convent Coolies." Looking up wrath fully he tried to face them down
with this epithet, but to face a person down while looking upward
is difficult: at last he gave it up. "Right-o!" he said bitterly.
"Right-o! Then I get the fair Cynthia with her little bag of dope and
Gertrude with her gloomy gaze, and we side-track the others and pass on
to our own private funeral."
There was something in the young fellow's tone as he said this
that roused both girls; half protesting, half laughing, they
leaned out. "No, wait, Dunce!" they pleaded, "let's talk it over.
Perhaps--wait--Dunce--Dunce----" but there was the angry whir of the
car and Dunce was gone.
Minga's face was scarlet, her eyes gleamed. She turned to Sard.
"Well, now you see what we've done. We were idiots. He was asking us
because--because----Sard, you know what those girls are!"
Sard, brows knitted, was self-conscious. "I ought to have realized,"
she said slowly, "but perhaps it's just----Oh, dear, Minga, what were
we thinking of? Dunstan has done his best to sort of good-naturedly
keep away from Cinny and Gertrude! My, she's horrible for a nice boy."
"And they'll work up a stag line with him for to-morrow night," said
Minga. "Oh, oh, oh!" she stamped her foot. "They'll have the pick of
the dances and all the extras. You know how they'll work it, Sard. Why
didn't you think quickly?"
The other girl ran her hand lovingly over the curly head. "Such a
little pepper-pot; why didn't you think? I thought you didn't want to
go, Minga; you're so funny, nobody will ever know what you want."
"Well, I will," asserted Minga vehemently, "that is, I'll know what I
want when I want it and now I want everlastingly to keep that Gertrude
thing from our nice boys and from Tawny, don't you see, Sard?" Minga's
eyes widened virtuously. "She's setting traps for my fiancé."
Sard threw back her head. "Oh," she pealed, "oh, you are too dreadful.
I give you up. Come on down to lunch."
The luncheon gong sounded its three soft ascending vibrations. The
girls, consulting, went down arm-in-arm. At the table they talked of
the large chrysanthemums they had seen at a flower show and of a new
way to serve butter, and Aunt Aurelia thought, "I am so glad to see
them getting interested in ladylike things. It is fortunate they did
not go on with college; they have just enough ideas, I think."