line. “Oh, I always could think up imitations of animals; things like
that--but I hardly would care to--to adop' the stage for a career.
Would--you?” (There was a thrill in his voice when he pronounced the
ineffably significant word “you.”)
Miss Pratt became intensely serious.
“It's my DREAM!” she said.
William, seated upon a stool at her feet, gazed up at the amber head,
divinely splashed by the rain of moonlight. The fire with which she
spoke stirred him as few things had ever stirred him. He knew she had
just revealed a side of herself which she reserved for only the chosen
few who were capable of understanding her, and he fell into a hushed
rapture. It seemed to him that there was a sacredness about this moment,
and he sought vaguely for something to say that would live up to it and
not be out of keeping. Then, like an inspiration, there came into his
head some words he had read that day and thought beautiful. He had found
them beneath an illustration in a magazine, and he spoke them almost
instinctively.
“It was wonderful of you to say that to me,” he said. “I shall never
forget it!”
“It's my DREAM!” Miss Pratt exclaimed, again, with the same enthusiasm.
“It's my DREAM.”
“You would make a glorious actress!” he said.
At that her mood changed. She laughed a laugh like a sweet little girl's
laugh (not Jane's) and, setting her rocking-chair in motion, cuddled the
fuzzy white doglet in her arms. “Ickle boy Baxter t'yin' flatterbox us,
tunnin' Flopit! No'ty, no'ty flatterbox!”
“No, no!” William insisted, earnestly. “I mean it. But--but--”
“But whatcums?”
“What do you think about actors and actresses making love to each other
on the stage? Do you think they have to really feel it, or do they just
pretend?”
“Well,” said Miss Pratt, weightily, “sometimes one way, sometimes the
other.”
William's gravity became more and more profound. “Yes, but how can they
pretend like that? Don't you think love is a sacred thing, Cousin Lola?”
Fictitious sisterships, brotherships, and cousinships are devices to
push things along, well known to seventeen and even more advanced ages.
On the wonderful evening of their first meeting William and Miss Pratt
had cozily arranged to be called, respectively, “Ickle boy Baxter” and
“Cousin Lola.” (Thus they had broken down the tedious formalities of
their first twenty minutes together.)
“Don't you think love is sacred?” he repeated in the deepest tone of
which his vocal cords were capable.
“Ess,” said Miss Pratt.
“_I_ do!” William was emphatic. “I think love is the most sacred thing
there is. I don't mean SOME kinds of love. I mean REAL love. You take
some people, I don't believe they ever know what real love means. They
TALK about it, maybe, but they don't understand it. Love is something
nobody can understand unless they feel it and and if they don't
understand it they don't feel it. Don't YOU think so?”
“Ess.”
“Love,” William continued, his voice lifting and thrilling to the great
theme--“love is something nobody can ever have but one time in their
lives, and if they don't have it then, why prob'ly they never will.
Now, if a man REALLY loves a girl, why he'd do anything in the world she
wanted him to. Don't YOU think so?”
“Ess, 'deedums!” said the silvery voice.
“But if he didn't, then he wouldn't,” said William vehemently. “But when
a man really loves a girl he will. Now, you take a man like that and
he can generally do just about anything the girl he loves wants him
to. Say, f'rinstance, she wants him to love her even more than he does
already--or almost anything like that--and supposin' she asks him to.
Well, he would go ahead and do it. If they really loved each other he
would!”
He paused a moment, then in a lowered tone he said, “I think REAL love
is sacred, don't you?”
“Ess.”
“Don't you think love is the most sacred thing there is--that is, if
it's REAL love?”
“Ess.”
“_I_ do,” said William, warmly. “I--I'm glad you feel like that, because
I think real love is the kind nobody could have but just once in their
lives, but if it isn't REAL love, why--why most people never have it at
all, because--” He paused, seeming to seek for the exact phrase which
would express his meaning. “--Because the REAL love a man feels for a
girl and a girl for a man, if they REALLY love each other, and, you look
at a case like that, of course they would BOTH love each other, or it
wouldn't be real love well, what _I_ say is, if it's REAL love, well,
it's--it's sacred, because I think that kind of love is always sacred.
Don't you think love is sacred if it's the real thing?”
“Ess,” said Miss Pratt. “Do Flopit again. Be Flopit!”
“Berp-werp! Berp-werp-werp.”
And within the library an agonized man writhed and muttered:
“WORD! WORD! WORD--”
This hoarse repetition had become almost continuous.
... But out on the porch, that little, jasmine-scented bower in
Arcady where youth cried to youth and golden heads were haloed in the
moonshine, there fell a silence. Not utter silence, for out there an
ethereal music sounded constantly, unheard and forgotten by older ears.
Time was when the sly playwrights used “incidental music” in their
dramas; they knew that an audience would be moved so long as the music
played; credulous while that crafty enchantment lasted. And when the
galled Mr. Parcher wondered how those young people out on the porch
could listen to each other and not die, it was because he did not
hear and had forgotten the music that throbs in the veins of youth.
Nevertheless, it may not be denied that despite his poor memory this man
of fifty was deserving of a little sympathy.
It was William who broke the silence. “How--” he began, and his voice
trembled a little. “How--how do you--how do you think of me when I'm not
with you?”
“Think nice-cums,” Miss Pratt responded. “Flopit an' me think
nice-cums.”
“No,” said William; “I mean what name do you have for me when you're
when you're thinking about me?”
Miss Pratt seemed to be puzzled, perhaps justifiably, and she made a
cooing sound of interrogation.
“I mean like this,” William explained. “F'rinstance, when you first
came, I always thought of you as 'Milady'--when I wrote that poem, you
know.”
“Ess. Boo'fums.”
“But now I don't,” he said. “Now I think of you by another name when I'm
alone. It--it just sort of came to me. I was kind of just sitting around
this afternoon, and I didn't know I was thinking about anything at all
very much, and then all of a sudden I said it to myself out loud. It was
about as strange a thing as I ever knew of. Don't YOU think so?”
“Ess. It uz dest WEIRD!” she answered. “What ARE dat pitty names?”
“I called you,” said William, huskily and reverently, “I called you 'My
Baby-Talk Lady.'”
BANG!
They were startled by a crash from within the library; a heavy weight
seemed to have fallen (or to have been hurled) a considerable distance.
Stepping to the window, William beheld a large volume lying in a
distorted attitude at the foot of the wall opposite to that in which the
reading-lamp was a fixture. But of all human life the room was empty;
for Mr. Parcher had given up, and was now hastening to his bed in the
last faint hope of saving his reason.
His symptoms, however, all pointed to its having fled; and his wife,
looking up from some computations in laundry charges, had but a vision
of windmill gestures as he passed the door of her room. Then, not only
for her, but for the inoffensive people who lived in the other half of
the house, the closing of his own door took place in a really memorable
manner.
William, gazing upon the fallen Plutarch, had just offered the
explanation, “Somebody must 'a' thrown it at a bug or something, I
guess,” when the second explosion sent its reverberations through the
house.
“My doodness!” Miss Pratt exclaimed, jumping up.
William laughed reassuringly, remaining calm. “It's only a door blew
shut up-stairs,” he said “Let's sit down again--just the way we were?”
Unfortunately for him, Mr. Joe Bullitt now made his appearance at the
other end of the porch. Mr. Bullitt, though almost a year younger than
either William or Johnnie Watson, was of a turbulent and masterful
disposition. Moreover, in regard to Miss Pratt, his affections were
in as ardent a state as those of his rivals, and he lacked Johnnie's
meekness. He firmly declined to be shunted by Miss Parcher, who was
trying to favor William's cause, according to a promise he had won of
her by strong pleading. Regardless of her efforts, Mr. Bullitt descended
upon William and his Baby-Talk-Lady, and received from the latter a
honeyed greeting, somewhat to the former's astonishment and not at all
to his pleasure.
“Oh, goody-cute!” cried Miss Pratt. “Here's big Bruvva Josie-Joe!” And
she lifted her little dog close to Mr. Bullitt's face, guiding one of
Flopit's paws with her fingers. “Stroke big Bruvva Josie-Joe's pint
teeks, darlin' Flopit.” (Josie-Joe's pink cheeks were indicated by the
expression “pint teeks,” evidently, for her accompanying action was to
pass Flopit's paw lightly over those glowing surfaces.) “'At's nice!”
she remarked. “Stroke him gently, p'eshus Flopit, an' nen we'll coax him
to make pitty singin' for us, like us did yestiday.”
She turned to William.
“COAX him to make pitty singin'? I LOVE his voice--I'm dest CRAZY over
it. Isn't oo?”
William's passion for Mr. Bullitt's voice appeared to be under control.
He laughed coldly, almost harshly. “Him sing?” he said. “Has he been
tryin' to sing around HERE? I wonder the family didn't call for the
police!”
It was to be seen that Mr. Bullitt did not relish the sally. “Well, they
will,” he retorted, “if you ever spring one o' your solos on 'em!” And
turning to Miss Pratt, he laughed loudly and bitterly. “You ought to
hear Silly Bill sing--some time when you don't mind goin' to bed sick
for a couple o' days!”
Symptoms of truculence at once became alarmingly pronounced on both
sides. William was naturally incensed, and as for Mr. Bullitt, he had
endured a great deal from William every evening since Miss Pratt's
arrival. William's evening clothes were hard enough for both Mr. Watson
and Mr. Bullitt to bear, without any additional insolence on the part
of the wearer. Big Bruvva Josie-Joe took a step toward his enemy and
breathed audibly.
“Let's ALL sing,” the tactful Miss Pratt proposed, hastily. “Come on,
May and Cousin Johnnie-Jump-Up,” she called to Miss Parcher and Mr.
Watson. “Singin'-school, dirls an' boys! Singin'-school! Ding, ding!
Singin'-school bell's a-wingin'!”
The diversion was successful. Miss Parcher and Mr. Watson joined the
other group with alacrity, and the five young people were presently
seated close together upon the steps of the porch, sending their voices
out upon the air and up to Mr. Parcher's window in the song they found
loveliest that summer.
Miss Pratt carried the air. William also carried it part of the time
and hunted for it the rest of the time, though never in silence. Miss
Parcher “sang alto,” Mr. Bullitt “sang bass,” and Mr. Watson “sang
tenor”--that is, he sang as high as possible, often making the top sound
of a chord and always repeating the last phrase of each line before the
others finished it. The melody was a little too sweet, possibly; while
the singers thought so highly of the words that Mr. Parcher missed not
one, especially as the vocal rivalry between Josie-Joe and Ickle Boy
Baxter incited each of them to prevent Miss Pratt from hearing the
other.
William sang loudest of all; Mr. Parcher had at no time any difficulty
in recognizing his voice.
“Oh, I love my love in the morning
And I love my love at night,
I love my love in the dawning,
And when the stars are bright.
Some may love the sunshine,
Others may love the dew.
Some may love the raindrops,
But I love only you-OO-oo!
By the stars up above
It is you I luh-HUV!
Yes, _I_ love own-LAY you!”
They sang it four times; then Mr. Bullitt sang his solo, “Tell her, O
Golden Moon, how I Adore her,” William following with “The violate loves
the cowslip, but _I_ love YEW,” and after that they all sang, “Oh, I
love my love in the morning,” again.
All this while that they sang of love, Mr. Parcher was moving to and fro
upon his bed, not more than eighteen feet in an oblique upward-slanting
line from the heads of the serenaders. Long, long he tossed, listening
to the young voices singing of love; long, long he thought of love, and
many, many times he spoke of it aloud, though he was alone in the room.
And in thus speaking of it, he would give utterance to phrases and
words probably never before used in connection with love since the world
began.
His thoughts, and, at intervals, his mutterings, continued to be active
far into the night, long after the callers had gone, and though his
household and the neighborhood were at rest, with never a katydid
outside to rail at the waning moon. And by a coincidence not more
singular than most coincidences, it happened that at just about the time
he finally fell asleep, a young lady at no great distance from him awoke
to find her self thinking of him.
XI
BEGINNING A TRUE FRIENDSHIP
This was Miss Jane Baxter. She opened her eyes upon the new-born day,
and her first thoughts were of Mr. Parcher. That is, he was already
in her mind when she awoke, a circumstance to be accounted for on the
ground that his conversation, during her quiet convalescence in his
library, had so fascinated her that in all likelihood she had been
dreaming of him. Then, too, Jane and Mr. Parcher had a bond in common,
though Mr. Parcher did not know it. Not without result had William
repeated Miss Pratt's inquiry in Jane's hearing: “Who IS that curious
child?” Jane had preserved her sang-froid, but the words remained with
her, for she was one of those who ponder and retain in silence.
She thought almost exclusively of Mr. Parcher until breakfast-time, and
resumed her thinking of him at intervals during the morning. Then, in
the afternoon, a series of quiet events not unconnected with William's
passion caused her to think of Mr. Parcher more poignantly than ever;
nor was her mind diverted to a different channel by another confidential
conversation with her mother. Who can say, then, that it was not by
design that she came face to face with Mr. Parcher on the public highway
at about five o'clock that afternoon? Everything urges the belief that
she deliberately set herself in his path.
Mr. Parcher was walking home from his office, and he walked slowly,
gulping from time to time, as he thought of the inevitable evening
before him. His was not a rugged constitution, and for the last
fortnight or so he had feared that it was giving way altogether. Each
evening he felt that he was growing weaker, and sometimes he thought
piteously that he might go away for a while. He did not much care where,
though what appealed to him most, curiously enough, was not the thought
of the country, with the flowers and little birds; no, what allured him
was the idea that perhaps he could find lodgment for a time in an Old
People's Home, where the minimum age for inmates was about eighty.
Walking more and more slowly, as he approached the dwelling he had once
thought of as home, he became aware of a little girl in a checkered
dress approaching him at a gait varied by the indifferent behavior of
a barrel-hoop which she was disciplining with a stick held in her
right hand. When the hoop behaved well, she came ahead rapidly; when it
affected to be intoxicated, which was most often its whim, she zigzagged
with it, and gained little ground. But all the while, and without
reference to what went on concerning the hoop, she slowly and
continuously fed herself (with her left hand) small, solemnly relished
bites of a slice of bread-and-butter covered with apple sauce and
powdered sugar.
Mr. Parcher looked upon her, and he shivered slightly; for he knew her
to be Willie Baxter's sister.
Unaware of the emotion she produced in him, Jane checked her hoop and
halted.
“G'd afternoon, Mister Parcher,” she said, gravely.
“Good afternoon,” he returned, without much spirit.
Jane looked up at him trustfully and with a strange, unconscious
fondness. “You goin' home now, Mr. Parcher?” she asked, turning to
walk at his side. She had suspended the hoop over her left arm and
transferred the bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar to her right,
so that she could eat even more conveniently than before.
“I suppose so,” he murmured.
“My brother Willie's been at your house all afternoon,” she remarked.
He repeated, “I suppose so,” but in a tone which combined the vocal
tokens of misery and of hopeless animosity.
“He just went home,” said Jane. “I was 'cross the street from your
house, but I guess he didn't see me. He kept lookin' back at your house.
Miss Pratt was on the porch.”
“I suppose so.” This time it was a moan.
Jane proceeded to give him some information. “My brother Willie isn't
comin' back to your house to-night, but he doesn't know it yet.”
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Parcher.
“Willie isn't goin' to spend any more evenings at your house at all,”
said Jane, thoughtfully. “He isn't, but he doesn't know it yet.”
Mr. Parcher gazed fixedly at the wonderful child, and something like
a ray of sunshine flickered over his seamed and harried face. “Are you
SURE he isn't?” he said. “What makes you think so?”
“I know he isn't,” said demure Jane. “It's on account of somep'm I told
mamma.”
And upon this a gentle glow began to radiate throughout Mr. Parcher. A
new feeling budded within his bosom; he was warmly attracted to Jane.
She was evidently a child to be cherished, and particularly to be
encouraged in the line of conduct she seemed to have adopted. He wished
the Bullitt and Watson families each had a little girl like this. Still,
if what she said of William proved true, much had been gained and life
might be tolerable, after all.
“He'll come in the afternoons, I guess,” said Jane. “But you aren't
home then, Mr. Parcher, except late like you were that day of the
Sunday-school class. It was on account of what you said that day. I told
mamma.”
“Told your mamma what?”
“What you said.”
Mr. Parcher's perplexity continued. “What about?”
“About Willie. YOU know!” Jane smiled fraternally.
“No, I don't.”
“It was when I was layin' in the liberry, that day of the Sunday-school
class,” Jane told him. “You an' Mrs. Parcher was talkin' in there about
Miss Pratt an' Willie an' everything.”
“Good heavens!” Mr. Parcher, summoning his memory, had placed the
occasion and Jane together. “Did you HEAR all that?”
“Yes.” Jane nodded. “I told mamma all what you said.”
“Murder!”
“Well,” said Jane, “I guess it's good I did, because look--that's the
very reason mamma did somep'm so's he can't come any more except in
daytime. I guess she thought Willie oughtn't to behave so's't you said
so many things about him like that; so to-day she did somep'm, an' now
he can't come any more to behave that loving way of Miss Pratt that you
said you would be in the lunatic asylum if he didn't quit. But he hasn't
found it out yet.”
“Found what out, please?” asked Mr. Parcher, feeling more affection for
Jane every moment.
“He hasn't found out he can't come back to your house to-night; an' he
can't come back to-morrow night, nor day-after-to-morrow night, nor--”
“Is it because your mamma is going to tell him he can't?”
“No, Mr. Parcher. Mamma says he's too old--an' she said she didn't like
to, anyway. She just DID somep'm.”
“What? What did she do?”
“It's a secret,” said Jane. “I could tell you the first part of it--up
to where the secret begins, I expect.”
“Do!” Mr. Parcher urged.
“Well, it's about somep'm Willie's been WEARIN',” Jane began, moving
closer to him as they slowly walked onward. “I can't tell you what they
were, because that's the secret--but he had 'em on him every evening
when he came to see Miss Pratt, but they belong to papa, an' papa
doesn't know a word about it. Well, one evening papa wanted to put 'em
on, because he had a right to, Mr. Parcher, an' Willie didn't have any
right to at all, but mamma couldn't find 'em; an' she rummidged an'
rummidged 'most all next day an' pretty near every day since then an'
never did find 'em, until don't you believe I saw Willie inside of 'em
only last night! He was startin' over to your house to see Miss Pratt in
'em! So I told mamma, an' she said it 'd haf to be a secret, so that's
why I can't tell you what they were. Well, an' then this afternoon,
early, I was with her, an' she said, long as I had told her the secret
in the first place, I could come in Willie's room with her, an' we both
were already in there anyway, 'cause I was kind of thinkin' maybe she'd
go in there to look for 'em, Mr. Parcher--”
“I see,” he said, admiringly. “I see.”
“Well, they were under Willie's window-seat, all folded up; an' mamma
said she wondered what she better do, an' she was worried because she
didn't like to have Willie behave so's you an' Mrs. Parcher thought that
way about him. So she said the--the secret--what Willie wears, you
know, but they're really papa's an' aren't Willie's any more'n they're
MINE--well, she said the secret was gettin' a little teeny bit too tight
for papa, but she guessed they--I mean the secret--she said she guessed
it was already pretty loose for Willie; so she wrapped it up, an' I
went with her, an' we took 'em to a tailor, an' she told him to make 'em
bigger, for a surprise for papa, 'cause then they'll fit him again, Mr.
Parcher. She said he must make 'em a whole lot bigger. She said he must
let 'em way, WAY out! So I guess Willie would look too funny in 'em
after they're fixed; an' anyway, Mr. Parcher, the secret won't be home
from the tailor's for two weeks, an' maybe by that time Miss Pratt'll be
gone.”
They had reached Mr. Parcher's gate; he halted and looked down fondly
upon this child who seemed to have read his soul. “Do you honestly think
so?” he asked.
“Well, anyway, Mr. Parcher,” said Jane, “mamma said--well, she said
she's sure Willie wouldn't come here in the evening any more when YOU're
at home, Mr. Parcher--'cause after he'd been wearin' the secret every
night this way he wouldn't like to come and not have the secret on.
Mamma said the reason he would feel like that was because he was
seventeen years old. An' she isn't goin' to tell him anything about it,
Mr. Parcher. She said that's the best way.”
Her new friend nodded and seemed to agree. “I suppose that's what you
meant when you said he wasn't coming back but didn't know it yet?”
“Yes, Mr. Parcher.”
He rested an elbow upon the gate-post, gazing down with ever-increasing
esteem. “Of course I know your last name,” he said, “but I'm afraid I've
forgotten your other one.”
“It's Jane.”
“Jane,” said Mr. Parcher, “I should like to do something for you.”
Jane looked down, and with eyes modestly lowered she swallowed the last
fragment of the bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar which had
been the constantly evanescent companion of their little walk together.
She was not mercenary; she had sought no reward.
“Well, I guess I must run home,” she said. And with one lift of her
eyes to his and a shy laugh--laughter being a rare thing for Jane--she
scampered quickly to the corner and was gone.
But though she cared for no reward, the extraordinary restlessness of
William, that evening, after dinner, must at least have been of great
interest to her. He ascended to his own room directly from the table,
but about twenty minutes later came down to the library, where Jane
was sitting (her privilege until half after seven) with her father and
mother. William looked from one to the other of his parents and seemed
about to speak, but did not do so. Instead, he departed for the upper
floor again and presently could be heard moving about energetically in
various parts of the house, a remote thump finally indicating that he
was doing something with a trunk in the attic.
After that he came down to the library again and once more seemed about
to speak, but did not. Then he went up-stairs again, and came down
again, and he was still repeating this process when Jane's time-limit
was reached and she repaired conscientiously to her little bed. Her
mother came to hear her prayers and to turn out the light; and--when
Mrs. Baxter had passed out into the hall, after that, Jane heard
her speaking to William, who was now conducting what seemed to be
excavations on a serious scale in his own room.