in fact, after spending some time in the lower back hall, listening to
the quest above, had just gone out through the kitchen door. And after
some ensuing futile efforts, Mr. Baxter was forced to proceed to his
club in the accoutrements of business.
He walked slowly, enjoying the full moon, which sailed up a river in the
sky--the open space between the trees that lined the street--and as
he passed the house of Mr. Parcher he noted the fine white shape of a
masculine evening bosom gleaming in the moonlight on the porch. A
dainty figure in white sat beside it, and there was another white figure
present, though this one was so small that Mr. Baxter did not see it at
all. It was the figure of a tiny doglet, and it reposed upon the black
masculine knees that belonged to the evening bosom.
Mr. Baxter heard a dulcet voice.
“He IS indifferink, isn't he, sweetest Flopit? Seriously, though,
Mr. Watson was telling me about you to-day. He says you're the most
indifferent man he knows. He says you don't care two minutes whether a
girl lives or dies. Isn't he a mean ole wicked sing, p'eshus Flopit!”
The reply was inaudible, and Mr. Baxter passed on, having recognized
nothing of his own.
“These YOUNG fellows don't have any trouble finding their dress-suits, I
guess,” he murmured. “Not on a night like this!”
... Thus William, after a hard day, came to the gates of his romance,
entering those portals of the moon in triumph. At one stroke his dashing
raiment gave him high superiority over Johnnie Watson and other rivals
who might loom. But if he had known to what undoing this great coup
exposed him, it is probable that Mr. Baxter would have appeared at the
Emerson Club, that night, in evening clothes.
VIII
JANE
William's period of peculiar sensitiveness dated from that evening, and
Jane, in particular, caused him a great deal of anxiety. In fact, he
began to feel that Jane was a mortification which his parents might have
spared him, with no loss to themselves or to the world. Not having
shown that consideration for anybody, they might at least have been less
spinelessly indulgent of her. William's bitter conviction was that he
had never seen a child so starved of discipline or so lost to etiquette
as Jane.
For one thing, her passion for bread-and-butter, covered with apple
sauce and powdered sugar, was getting to be a serious matter. Secretly,
William was not yet so changed by love as to be wholly indifferent to
this refection himself, but his consumption of it was private, whereas
Jane had formed the habit of eating it in exposed places--such as the
front yard or the sidewalk. At no hour of the day was it advisable for
a relative to approach the neighborhood in fastidious company, unless
prepared to acknowledge kinship with a spindly young person either
eating bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered sugar, or all too
visibly just having eaten bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered
sugar. Moreover, there were times when Jane had worse things than apple
sauce to answer for, as William made clear to his mother in an oration
as hot as the July noon sun which looked down upon it.
Mrs. Baxter was pleasantly engaged with a sprinkling-can and some small
flower-beds in the shady back yard, and Jane, having returned from
various sidewalk excursions, stood close by as a spectator, her hands
replenished with the favorite food and her chin rising and falling in
gentle motions, little prophecies of the slight distensions which passed
down her slender throat with slow, rhythmic regularity. Upon this calm
scene came William, plunging round a corner of the house, furious yet
plaintive.
“You've got to do something about that child!” he began. “I CAN not
stand it!”
Jane looked at him dumbly, not ceasing, how ever, to eat; while Mrs.
Baxter thoughtfully continued her sprinkling.
“You've been gone all morning, Willie,” she said. “I thought your father
mentioned at breakfast that he expected you to put in at least four
hours a day on your mathematics and--”
“That's neither here nor there,” William returned, vehemently. “I just
want to say this: if you don't do something about Jane, I will! Just
look at her! LOOK at her, I ask you! That's just the way she looked half
an hour ago, out on the public sidewalk in front of the house, when
I came by here with Miss PRATT! That was pleasant, wasn't it? To be
walking with a lady on the public street and meet a member of my family
looking like that! Oh, LOVELY!”
In the anguish of this recollection his voice cracked, and though his
eyes were dry his gestures wept for him. Plainly, he was about to reach
the most lamentable portion of his narrative. “And then she HOLLERED at
me! She hollered, 'Oh, WILL--EE!'” Here he gave an imitation of Jane's
voice, so damnatory that Jane ceased to eat for several moments and drew
herself up with a kind of dignity. “She hollered, 'Oh, WILL--EE' at
me!” he stormed. “Anybody would think I was about six years old! She
hollered, 'Oh, Will--ee,' and she rubbed her stomach and slushed apple
sauce all over her face, and she kept hollering, 'Will--ee!' with her
mouth full. 'Will--ee, look! Good! Bread-and-butter and apple sauce and
sugar! I bet you wish YOU had some, Will--ee!'”
“You did eat some, the other day,” said Jane. “You ate a whole lot. You
eat it every chance you get!”
“You hush up!” he shouted, and returned to his description of the
outrage. “She kept FOLLOWING us! She followed us, hollering, 'WILL--EE!'
till it's a wonder we didn't go deaf! And just look at her! I don't
see how you can stand it to have her going around like that and people
knowing it's your child! Why, she hasn't got enough ON!”
Mrs. Baxter laughed. “Oh, for this very hot weather, I really don't
think people notice or care much about--”
“'Notice'!” he wailed. “I guess Miss PRATT noticed! Hot weather's no
excuse for--for outright obesity!” (As Jane was thin, it is probable
that William had mistaken the meaning of this word.) “Why, half o' what
she HAS got on has come unfastened--especially that frightful thing
hanging around her leg--and look at her back, I just beg you! I ask you
to look at her back. You can see her spinal cord!”
“Column,” Mrs. Baxter corrected. “Spinal column, Willie.”
“What do _I_ care which it is?” he fumed. “People aren't supposed to go
around with it EXPOSED, whichever it is! And with apple sauce on their
ears!”
“There is not!” Jane protested, and at the moment when she spoke she was
right. Naturally, however, she lifted her hands to the accused ears, and
the unfortunate result was to justify William's statement.
“LOOK!” he cried. “I just ask you to look! Think of it: that's the sight
I have to meet when I'm out walking with Miss PRATT! She asked me who
it was, and I wish you'd seen her face. She wanted to know who 'that
curious child' was, and I'm glad you didn't hear the way she said it.
'Who IS that curious child?' she said, and I had to tell her it was my
sister. I had to tell Miss PRATT it was my only SISTER!”
“Willie, who is Miss Pratt?” asked Mrs. Baxter, mildly. “I don't think
I've ever heard of--”
Jane had returned to an admirable imperturbability, but she chose
this moment to interrupt her mother, and her own eating, with remarks
delivered in a tone void of emphasis or expression.
“Willie's mashed on her,” she said, casually. “And she wears false
side-curls. One almost came off.”
At this unspeakable desecration William's face was that of a high priest
stricken at the altar.
“She's visitin' Miss May Parcher,” added the deadly Jane. “But the
Parchers are awful tired of her. They wish she'd go home, but they don't
like to tell her so.”
One after another these insults from the canaille fell upon the ears of
William. That slanders so atrocious could soil the universal air seemed
unthinkable.
He became icily calm.
“NOW if you don't punish her,” he said, deliberately, “it's because you
have lost your sense of duty!”
Having uttered these terrible words, he turned upon his heel and marched
toward the house. His mother called after him:
“Wait, Willie. Jane doesn't mean to hurt your feelings--”
“My feelings!” he cried, the iciness of his demeanor giving way under
the strain of emotion. “You stand there and allow her to speak as she
did of one of the--one of the--” For a moment William appeared to be at
a loss, and the fact is that it always has been a difficult matter to
describe THE bright, ineffable divinity of the world to one's mother,
especially in the presence of an inimical third party of tender years.
“One of the--” he said; “one of the--the noblest--one of the noblest--”
Again he paused.
“Oh, Jane didn't mean anything,” said Mrs. Baxter. “And if you think
Miss Pratt is so nice, I'll ask May Parcher to bring her to tea with us
some day. If it's too hot, we'll have iced tea, and you can ask Johnnie
Watson, if you like. Don't get so upset about things, Willie!”
“'Upset'!” he echoed, appealing to heaven against this word. “'Upset'!”
And he entered the house in a manner most dramatic.
“What made you say that?” Mrs. Baxter asked, turning curiously to Jane
when William had disappeared. “Where did you hear any such things?”
“I was there,” Jane replied, gently eating on and on. William could come
and William could go, but Jane's alimentary canal went on forever.
“You were where, Jane?”
“At the Parchers'.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yesterday afternoon,” said Jane, “when Miss Parcher had the
Sunday-school class for lemonade and cookies.”
“Did you hear Miss Parcher say--”
“No'm,” said Jane. “I ate too many cookies, I guess, maybe. Anyways,
Miss Parcher said I better lay down--”
“LIE down, Jane.”
“Yes'm. On the sofa in the liberry, an' Mrs. Parcher an' Mr. Parcher
came in there an' sat down, after while, an' it was kind of dark, an'
they didn't hardly notice me, or I guess they thought I was asleep,
maybe. Anyways, they didn't talk loud, but Mr. Parcher would sort of
grunt an' ack cross. He said he just wished he knew when he was goin'
to have a home again. Then Mrs. Parcher said May HAD to ask her
Sunday-school class, but he said he never meant the Sunday-school class.
He said since Miss Pratt came to visit, there wasn't anywhere he could
go, because Willie Baxter an' Johnnie Watson an' Joe Bullitt an' all the
other ones like that were there all the time, an' it made him just sick
at the stummick, an' he did wish there was some way to find out when she
was goin' home, because he couldn't stand much more talk about love.
He said Willie an' Johnnie Watson an' Joe Bullitt an' Miss Pratt were
always arguin' somep'm about love, an' he said Willie was the worst.
Mamma, he said he didn't like the rest of it, but he said he guessed he
could stand it if it wasn't for Willie. An' he said the reason they were
all so in love of Miss Pratt was because she talks baby-talk, an' he
said he couldn't stand much more baby-talk. Mamma, she has the loveliest
little white dog, an' Mr. Parcher doesn't like it. He said he couldn't
go anywhere around the place without steppin' on the dog or Willie
Baxter. An' he said he couldn't sit on his own porch any more; he said
he couldn't sit even in the liberry but he had to hear baby-talk goin'
on SOMEwheres an' then either Willie Baxter or Joe Bullitt or
somebody or another arguin' about love. Mamma, he said”--Jane became
impressive--“he said, mamma, he said he didn't mind the Sunday-school
class, but he couldn't stand those dam boys!”
“Jane!” Mrs. Baxter cried, “you MUSTN'T say such things!”
“I didn't, mamma. Mr. Parcher said it. He said he couldn't stand those
da--”
“JANE! No matter what he said, you mustn't repeat--”
“But I'm not. I only said Mr. PARCHER said he couldn't stand those d--”
Mrs. Baxter cut the argument short by imprisoning Jane's mouth with a
firm hand. Jane continued to swallow quietly until released. Then she
said:
“But, mamma, how can I tell you what he said unless I say--”
“Hush!” Mrs. Baxter commanded. “You must never, never again use such a
terrible and wicked word.”
“I won't, mamma,” Jane said, meekly. Then she brightened. “Oh, _I_ know!
I'll say 'word' instead. Won't that be all right?”
“I--I suppose so.”
“Well, Mr. Parcher said he couldn't stand those word boys. That sounds
all right, doesn't it, mamma?”
Mrs. Baxter hesitated, but she was inclined to hear as complete as
possible a report of Mr. and Mrs. Parcher's conversation, since it
seemed to concern William so nearly; and she well knew that Jane had her
own way of telling things--or else they remained untold.
“I--I suppose so,” Mrs. Baxter said, again.
“Well, they kind of talked along,” Jane continued, much pleased;--“an'
Mr. Parcher said when he was young he wasn't any such a--such a word
fool as these young word fools were. He said in all his born days Willie
Baxter was the wordest fool he ever saw!”
Willie Baxter's mother flushed a little. “That was very unjust and very
wrong of Mr. Parcher,” she said, primly.
“Oh no, mamma!” Jane protested. “Mrs. Parcher thought so, too.”
“Did she, indeed!”
“Only she didn't say word or wordest or anything like that,” Jane
explained. “She said it was because Miss Pratt had coaxed him to be so
in love of her, an' Mr. Parcher said he didn't care whose fault it was,
Willie was a--a word calf an' so were all the rest of 'em, Mr. Parcher
said. An' he said he couldn't stand it any more. Mr. Parcher said that a
whole lot of times, mamma. He said he guess' pretty soon he'd haf to be
in the lunatic asylum if Miss Pratt stayed a few more days with her word
little dog an' her word Willie Baxter an' all the other word calfs. Mrs.
Parcher said he oughtn't to say 'word,' mamma. She said, 'Hush, hush!'
to him, mamma. He talked like this, mamma: he said, 'I'll be word if I
stand it!' An' he kept gettin' crosser, an' he said, 'Word! Word! WORD!
WOR--'”
“There!” Mrs. Baxter interrupted, sharply. “That will do, Jane! We'll
talk about something else now, I think.”
Jane looked hurt; she was taking great pleasure in this confidential
interview, and gladly would have continued to quote the harried Mr.
Parcher at great length. Still, she was not entirely uncontent: she must
have had some perception that her performance merely as a notable bit of
reportorial art--did not wholly lack style, even if her attire did. Yet,
brilliant as Jane's work was, Mrs. Baxter felt no astonishment; several
times ere this Jane had demonstrated a remarkable faculty for the
retention of details concerning William. And running hand in hand with
a really superb curiosity, this powerful memory was making Jane an even
greater factor in William's life than he suspected.
During the glamors of early love, if there be a creature more deadly
than the little brother of a budding woman, that creature is the little
sister of a budding man. The little brother at least tells in the open
all he knows, often at full power of his lungs, and even that may be
avoided, since he is wax in the hands of bribery; but the little sister
is more apt to save her knowledge for use upon a terrible occasion; and,
no matter what bribes she may accept, she is certain to tell her mother
everything. All in all, a young lover should arrange, if possible, to be
the only child of elderly parents; otherwise his mother and sister are
sure to know a great deal more about him than he knows that they know.
This was what made Jane's eyes so disturbing to William during lunch
that day. She ate quietly and competently, but all the while he was
conscious of her solemn and inscrutable gaze fixed upon him; and she
spoke not once. She could not have rendered herself more annoying,
especially as William was trying to treat her with silent scorn, for
nothing is more irksome to the muscles of the face than silent scorn,
when there is no means of showing it except by the expression. On the
other hand, Jane's inscrutability gave her no discomfort whatever. In
fact, inscrutability is about the most comfortable expression that a
person can wear, though the truth is that just now Jane was not really
inscrutable at all.
She was merely looking at William and thinking of Mr. Parcher.
IX
LITTLE SISTERS HAVE BIG EARS
The confidential talk between mother and daughter at noon was not
the last to take place that day. At nightfall--eight o'clock in this
pleasant season--Jane was saying her prayers beside her bed, while her
mother stood close by, waiting to put out the light.
“An' bless mamma and papa an'--” Jane murmured, coming to a pause.
“An'--an' bless Willie,” she added, with a little reluctance.
“Go on, dear,” said her mother. “You haven't finished.”
“I know it, mamma,” Jane looked up to say. “I was just thinkin' a
minute. I want to tell you about somep'm.”
“Finish your prayers first, Jane.”
Jane obeyed with a swiftness in which there was no intentional
irreverence. Then she jumped into bed and began a fresh revelation.
“It's about papa's clo'es, mamma.”
“What clothes of papa's? What do you mean, Jane?” asked Mrs. Baxter,
puzzled.
“The ones you couldn't find. The ones you been lookin' for 'most every
day.”
“You mean papa's evening clothes?”
“Yes'm,” said Jane. “Willie's got 'em on.”
“What!”
“Yes, he has!” Jane assured her with emphasis. “I bet you he's had 'em
on every single evening since Miss Pratt came to visit the Parchers!
Anyway, he's got 'em on now, 'cause I saw 'em.”
Mrs. Baxter bit her lip and frowned. “Are you sure, Jane?”
“Yes'm. I saw him in 'em.”
“How?”
“Well, I was in my bare feet after I got undressed--before you came
up-stairs--mamma, an' I was kind of walkin' around in the hall--”
“You shouldn't do that, Jane.”
“No'm. An' I heard Willie say somep'm kind of to himself, or like
deckamation. He was inside his room, but the door wasn't quite shut. He
started out once, but he went back for somep'm an' forgot to, I guess.
Anyway, I thought I better look an' see what was goin' on, mamma. So I
just kind of peeked in--”
“But you shouldn't do that, dear,” Mrs. Baxter said, musingly. “It isn't
really quite honorable.”
“No'm. Well, what you think he was doin'?” (Here Jane's voice betrayed
excitement and so did her eyes.) “He was standin' up there in papa's
clo'es before the lookin'-glass, an' first he'd lean his head over on
one side, an' then he'd lean it over on the other side, an' then he'd
bark, mamma.”
“He'd what?”
“Yes'm!” said Jane. “He'd give a little, teeny BARK, mamma--kind of like
a puppy, mamma.”
“What?” cried Mrs. Baxter.
“Yes'm, he did!” Jane asserted. “He did it four or five times. First
he'd lean his head way over on his shoulder like this--look, mamma!--an'
then he'd lean it way over the other shoulder, an' every time he'd do it
he'd bark. 'Berp-werp!' he'd say, mamma, just like that, only not loud
at all. He said, 'Berp-werp! BERP-WERP-WERP!' You could tell he meant
it for barkin', but it wasn't very good, mamma. What you think he meant,
mamma?”
“Heaven knows!” murmured the astonished mother.
“An' then,” Jane continued, “he quit barkin' all of a sudden, an' didn't
lean his head over any more, an' commenced actin' kind of solemn, an'
kind of whispered to himself. I think he was kind of pretendin' he was
talkin' to Miss Pratt, or at a party, maybe. Anyways, he spoke out loud
after while not just exactly LOUD, I mean, but anyway so's 't I could
hear what he said. Mamma--he said, 'Oh, my baby-talk lady!' just like
that, mamma. Listen, mamma, here's the way he said it: 'Oh, my baby-talk
lady!'”
Jane's voice, in this impersonation, became sufficiently soft and
tremulous to give Mrs. Baxter a fair idea of the tender yearning of the
original. “'OH, MY BABY-TALK LADY!'” cooed the terrible Jane.
“Mercy!” Mrs. Baxter exclaimed. “Perhaps it's no wonder Mr. Parcher--”
She broke off abruptly, then inquired, “What did he do next, Jane?”
“Next,” said Jane, “he put the light out, an' I had to--well, I just
waited kind of squeeged up against the wall, an' he never saw me. He
went on out to the back stairs, an' went down the stairs tiptoe, mamma.
You know what I think, mamma? I think he goes out that way an' through
the kitchen on account of papa's clo'es.”
Mrs. Baxter paused, with her hand upon the key of the shaded electric
lamp. “I suppose so,” she said. “I think perhaps--” For a moment or
two she wrapped herself in thought. “Perhaps”--she repeated,
musingly--“perhaps we'll keep this just a secret between you and me for
a little while, Jane, and not say anything to papa about the clothes. I
don't think it will hurt them, and I suppose Willie feels they give
him a great advantage over the other boys--and papa uses them so very
little, especially since he's grown a wee bit stouter. Yes, it will be
our secret, Jane. We'll think it over till to-morrow.”
“Yes'm.”
Mrs. Baxter turned out the light, then came and kissed Jane in the dark.
“Good night, dear.”
“G' night, mamma.” But as Mrs. Baxter reached the door Jane's voice was
heard again.
“Mamma?”
“Yes?” Mrs. Baxter paused.
“Mamma,” Jane said, slowly, “I think--I think Mr. Parcher is a very nice
man. Mamma?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Mamma, what do you s'pose Willie barked at the lookin'-glass for?”
“That,” said Mrs. Baxter, “is beyond me. Young people and children do
the strangest things, Jane! And then, when they get to be middle-aged,
they forget all those strange things they did, and they can't understand
what the new young people--like you and Willie mean by the strange
things THEY do.”
“Yes'm. I bet _I_ know what he was barkin' for, mamma.”
“Well?”
“You know what I think? I think he was kind of practisin'. I think he
was practisin' how to bark at Mr. Parcher.”
“No, no!” Mrs. Baxter laughed. “Who ever could think of such a thing but
you, Jane! You go to sleep and forget your nonsense!”
Nevertheless, Jane might almost have been gifted with clairvoyance, her
preposterous idea came so close to the actual fact, for at that very
moment William was barking. He was not barking directly at Mr. Parcher,
it is true, but within a short distance of him and all too well within
his hearing.
X
MR. PARCHER AND LOVE
Mr. Parcher, that unhappy gentleman, having been driven indoors from his
own porch, had attempted to read Plutarch's Lives in the library, but,
owing to the adjacency of the porch and the summer necessity for open
windows, his escape spared only his eyes and not his suffering ears. The
house was small, being but half of a double one, with small rooms, and
the “parlor,” library, and dining-room all about equally exposed to the
porch which ran along the side of the house. Mr. Parcher had no refuge
except bed or the kitchen, and as he was troubled with chronic insomnia,
and the cook had callers in the kitchen, his case was desperate. Most
unfortunately, too, his reading-lamp, the only one in the house, was a
fixture near a window, and just beyond that window sat Miss Pratt and
William in sweet unconsciousness, while Miss Parcher entertained the
overflow (consisting of Mr. Johnnie Watson) at the other end of the
porch. Listening perforce to the conversation of the former couple
though “conversation” is far from the expression later used by Mr.
Parcher to describe what he heard--he found it impossible to sit
still in his chair. He jerked and twitched with continually increasing
restlessness; sometimes he gasped, and other times he moaned a little,
and there were times when he muttered huskily.
“Oh, cute-ums!” came the silvery voice of Miss Pratt from the likewise
silvery porch outside, underneath the summer moon. “Darlin' Flopit,
look! Ickle boy Baxter goin' make imitations of darlin' Flopit again.
See! Ickle boy Baxter puts head one side, then other side, just
like darlin' Flopit. Then barks just like darlin' Flopit! Ladies and
'entlemen, imitations of darlin' Flopit by ickle boy Baxter.”
“Berp-werp! Berp-werp!” came the voice of William Sylvanus Baxter.
And in the library Plutarch's Lives moved convulsively, while with
writhing lips Mr. Parcher muttered to himself.
“More, more!” cried Miss Pratt, clapping her hands. “Do it again, ickle
boy Baxter!”
“Berp-werp! Berp-werp-werp!”
“WORD!” muttered Mr. Parcher.
Miss Pratt's voice became surcharged with honeyed wonder. “How did he
learn such marv'lous, MARV'LOUS imitations of darlin' Flopit? He ought
to go on the big, big stage and be a really actor, oughtn't he, darlin'
Flopit? He could make milyums and milyums of dollardies, couldn't he,
darlin' Flopit?”