freezer. “Seem like I rickalect SOMEBODY got name good deal like what I
say, 'cause some mighty blue-vein names at 'at dinnuh-potty, yessuh! But
I on'y git to be 'nouncer one time, 'cause Fanny tellin' me nex' fam'ly
have dinnuh-potty make heap o' fun. Say I done my 'nouncin' GOOD, but
say what's use holler'n' names jes' fer some the neighbors or they own
aunts an' uncles to walk in, when ev'ybody awready knows 'em? So Fanny
pummote me to waituh, an' I roun' right in amongs' big doin's mos' ev'y
night. Pass ice-cream, lemonade, lemon-ice, cake, samwitches. 'Lemme
han' you li'l' mo' chicken salad, ma'am'--' 'Low me be so kine as to git
you f'esh cup coffee, suh'--'S way ole Genesis talkin' ev'y even' 'ese
days!”
Jane looked at him thoughtfully. “Do you like it better than cuttin'
grass, Genesis?” she asked.
He paused to consider. “Yes'm--when ban' play all lem TUNES! My
goo'ness, do soun' gran'!”
“You can't do it to-night, though, Genesis,” said Jane. “You haf to be
quiet on Sunday nights, don't you?”
“Yes'm. 'Ain' got no mo' kaytun till nex' Friday even'.”
“Oh, I bet that's the party for Miss Pratt at Mr. Parcher's!” Jane
cried. “Didn't I guess right?”
“Yes'm. I reckon I'm a-go'n' a see one you' fam'ly 'at night; see him
dancin'--wait on him at ref'eshmuns.”
Jane's expression became even more serious than usual. “Willie? I don't
know whether he's goin', Genesis.”
“Lan' name!” Genesis exclaimed. “He die ef he don' git INvite to 'at
ball!”
“Oh, he's invited,” said Jane. “Only I think maybe he won't go.”
“My goo'ness! Why ain' he goin'?”
Jane looked at her friend studiously before replying. “Well, it's a
secret,” she said, finally, “but it's a very inter'sting one, an' I'll
tell you if you never tell.”
“Yes'm, I ain' tellin' nobody.”
Jane glanced round, then stepped a little closer and told the secret
with the solemnity it deserved. “Well, when Miss Pratt first came to
visit Miss May Parcher, Willie used to keep papa's evening clo'es in
his window-seat, an' mamma wondered what HAD become of 'em. Then, after
dinner, he'd slip up there an' put 'em on him, an' go out through the
kitchen an' call on Miss Pratt. Then mamma found 'em, an' she thought he
oughtn't to do that, so she didn't tell him or anything, an' she didn't
even tell papa, but she had the tailor make 'em ever an' ever so much
bigger, 'cause they were gettin' too tight for papa. An' well, so after
that, even if Willie could get 'em out o' mamma's clo'es-closet where
she keeps 'em now, he'd look so funny in 'em he couldn't wear 'em. Well,
an' then he couldn't go to pay calls on Miss Pratt in the evening since
then, because mamma says after he started to go there in that suit he
couldn't go without it, or maybe Miss Pratt or the other ones that's in
love of her would think it was pretty queer, an' maybe kind of expeck it
was papa's all the time. Mamma says she thinks Willie must have worried
a good deal over reasons to say why he'd always go in the daytime after
that, an' never came in the evening, an' now they're goin' to have this
party, an' she says he's been gettin' paler and paler every day since
he heard about it. Mamma says he's pale SOME because Miss Pratt's goin'
away, but she thinks it's a good deal more because, well, if he would
wear those evening clo'es just to go CALLIN', how would it be to go to
that PARTY an' not have any! That's what mamma thinks--an', Genesis, you
promised you'd never tell as long as you live!”
“Yes'm. _I_ ain' tellin',” Genesis chuckled. “I'm a-go'n' agit me one
nem waituh suits befo' long, myse'f, so's I kin quit wearin' 'at ole
Henry Gimlet suit what b'long to Fanny, an' have me a privut suit o'
my own. They's a secon'-han' sto' ovuh on the avynoo, where they got
swallertail suits all way f'um sevum dolluhs to nineteem dolluhs an'
ninety-eight cents. I'm a--”
Jane started, interrupting him. “'SH!” she whispered, laying a finger
warningly upon her lips.
William had entered the yard at the back gate, and, approaching over the
lawn, had arrived at the steps of the porch before Jane perceived
him. She gave him an apprehensive look, but he passed into the house
absent-mindedly, not even flinching at sight of Clematis--and Mrs.
Baxter was right, William did look pale.
“I guess he didn't hear us,” said Jane, when he had disappeared into the
interior. “He acks awful funny!” she added, thoughtfully. “First when he
was in love of Miss Pratt, he'd be mad about somep'm almost every minute
he was home. Couldn't anybody say ANYthing to him but he'd just behave
as if it was frightful, an' then if you'd see him out walkin' with Miss
Pratt, well, he'd look like--like--” Jane paused; her eye fell upon
Clematis and by a happy inspiration she was able to complete her simile
with remarkable accuracy. “He'd look like the way Clematis looks at
people! That's just EXACTLY the way he'd look, Genesis, when he was
walkin' with Miss Pratt; an' then when he was home he got so quiet he
couldn't answer questions an' wouldn't hear what anybody said to him
at table or anywhere, an' papa 'd nearly almost bust. Mamma 'n' papa 'd
talk an' talk about it, an'”--she lowered her voice--“an' I knew what
they were talkin' about. Well, an' then he'd hardly ever get mad any
more; he'd just sit in his room, an' sometimes he'd sit in there without
any light, or he'd sit out in the yard all by himself all evening,
maybe; an' th'other evening after I was in bed I heard 'em, an' papa
said--well, this is what papa told mamma.” And again lowering her
voice, she proffered the quotation from her father in atone somewhat
awe-struck: “Papa said, by Gosh! if he ever 'a' thought a son of his
could make such a Word idiot of himself he almost wished we'd both been
girls!”
Having completed this report in a violent whisper, Jane nodded
repeatedly, for emphasis, and Genesis shook his head to show that he was
as deeply impressed as she wished him to be. “I guess,” she added, after
a pause “I guess Willie didn't hear anything you an' I talked about him,
or clo'es, or anything.”
She was mistaken in part. William had caught no reference to himself,
but he had overheard something and he was now alone in his room,
thinking about it almost feverishly. “A secon'-han' sto' ovuh on the
avynoo, where they got swaller-tail suits all way f'um sevum dolluhs to
nineteem dolluhs an' ninety-eight cents.”
... Civilization is responsible for certain longings in the breast
of man--artificial longings, but sometimes as poignant as hunger and
thirst. Of these the strongest are those of the maid for the bridal
veil, of the lad for long trousers, and of the youth for a tailed coat
of state. To the gratification of this last, only a few of the early
joys in life are comparable. Indulged youths, too rich, can know, to the
unctuous full, neither the longing nor the gratification; but one such
as William, in “moderate circumstances,” is privileged to pant for his
first evening clothes as the hart panteth after the water-brook--and
sometimes, to pant in vain. Also, this was a crisis in William's
life: in addition to his yearning for such apparel, he was racked by a
passionate urgency.
As Jane had so precociously understood, unless he should somehow manage
to obtain the proper draperies he could not go to the farewell dance
for Miss Pratt. Other unequipped boys could go in their ordinary “best
clothes,” but William could not; for, alack! he had dressed too well too
soon!
He was in desperate case.
The sorrow of the approaching great departure was but the heavier
because it had been so long deferred. To William it had seemed that this
flower-strewn summer could actually end no more than he could actually
die, but Time had begun its awful lecture, and even Seventeen was
listening.
Miss Pratt, that magic girl, was going home.
XXIII
FATHERS FORGET
To the competent twenties, hundreds of miles suggesting no
impossibilities, such departures may be rending, but not tragic.
Implacable, the difference to Seventeen! Miss Pratt was going home, and
Seventeen could not follow; it could only mourn upon the lonely shore,
tracing little angelic footprints left in the sand.
To Seventeen such a departure is final; it is a vanishing.
And now it seemed possible that William might be deprived even of the
last romantic consolations: of the “last waltz together,” of the last,
last “listening to music in the moonlight together”; of all those sacred
lasts of the “last evening together.”
He had pleaded strongly for a “dress-suit” as a fitting recognition
of his seventeenth birthday anniversary, but he had been denied by
his father with a jocularity more crushing than rigor. Since then--in
particular since the arrival of Miss Pratt--Mr. Baxter's temper had been
growing steadily more and more even. That is, as affected by William's
social activities, it was uniformly bad. Nevertheless, after heavy
brooding, William decided to make one final appeal before he resorted to
measures which the necessities of despair had caused him to contemplate.
He wished to give himself every chance for a good effect; therefore, he
did not act hastily, but went over what he intended to say, rehearsing
it with a few appropriate gestures, and even taking some pleasure in the
pathetic dignity of this performance, as revealed by occasional
glances at the mirror of his dressing-table. In spite of these little
alleviations, his trouble was great and all too real, for, unhappily,
the previous rehearsal of an emotional scene does not prove the emotion
insincere.
Descending, he found his father and mother still sitting upon the front
porch. Then, standing before them, solemn-eyed, he uttered a preluding
cough, and began:
“Father,” he said in a loud voice, “I have come to--”
“Dear me!” Mrs. Baxter exclaimed, not perceiving that she was
interrupting an intended oration. “Willie, you DO look pale! Sit down,
poor child; you oughtn't to walk so much in this heat.”
“Father,” William repeated. “Fath--”
“I suppose you got her safely home from church,” Mr. Baxter said. “She
might have been carried off by footpads if you three boys hadn't been
along to take care of her!”
But William persisted heroically. “Father--” he said. “Father, I have
come to--”
“What on earth's the matter with you?” Mr. Baxter ceased to fan himself;
Mrs. Baxter stopped rocking, and both stared, for it had dawned upon
them that something unusual was beginning to take place.
William backed to the start and tried it again. “Father, I have come
to--” He paused and gulped, evidently expecting to be interrupted,
but both of his parents remained silent, regarding him with puzzled
surprise. “Father,” he began once more, “I have come--I have come
to--to place before you something I think it's your duty as my father
to undertake, and I have thought over this step before laying it before
you.”
“My soul!” said Mr. Baxter, under his breath. “My soul!”
“At my age,” William continued, swallowing, and fixing his earnest eyes
upon the roof of the porch, to avoid the disconcerting stare of his
father--“at my age there's some things that ought to be done and some
things that ought not to be done. If you asked me what I thought OUGHT
to be done, there is only one answer: When anybody as old as I am has
to go out among other young men his own age that already got one, like
anyway half of them HAVE, who I go with, and their fathers have already
taken such a step, because they felt it was the only right thing to
do, because at my age and the young men I go with's age, it IS the only
right thing to do, because that is something nobody could deny, at my
age--” Here William drew a long breath, and, deciding to abandon that
sentence as irrevocably tangled, began another: “I have thought over
this step, because there comes a time to every young man when they must
lay a step before their father before something happens that they would
be sorry for. I have thought this undertaking over, and I am certain it
would be your honest duty--”
“My soul!” gasped Mr. Baxter. “I thought I knew you pretty well, but you
talk like a stranger to ME! What is all this? What you WANT?”
“A dress-suit!” said William.
He had intended to say a great deal more before coming to the point,
but, although through nervousness he had lost some threads of his
rehearsed plea, it seemed to him that he was getting along well and
putting his case with some distinction and power. He was surprised and
hurt, therefore, to hear his father utter a wordless shout in a tone of
wondering derision.
“I have more to say--” William began.
But Mr. Baxter cut him off. “A dress-suit!” he cried. “Well, I'm glad
you were talking about SOMETHING, because I honestly thought it must be
too much sun!”
At this, the troubled William brought his eyes down from the porch roof
and forgot his rehearsal. He lifted his hand appealingly. “Father,” he
said, “I GOT to have one!”
“'Got to'!” Mr. Baxter laughed a laugh that chilled the supplicant
through and through. “At your age I thought I was lucky if I had ANY
suit that was fit to be seen in. You're too young, Willie. I don't want
you to get your mind on such stuff, and if I have my way, you won't have
a dress-suit for four years more, anyhow.”
“Father, I GOT to have one. I got to have one right away!” The urgency
in William's voice was almost tearful. “I don't ask you to have it made,
or to go to expensive tailors, but there's plenty of good ready-made
ones that only cost about forty dollars; they're advertised in the
paper. Father, wouldn't you spend just forty dollars? I'll pay it back
when I'm in business; I'll work--”
Mr. Baxter waved all this aside. “It's not the money. It's the principle
that I'm standing for, and I don't intend--”
“Father, WON'T you do it?”
“No, I will not!”
William saw that sentence had been passed and all appeals for a new
trial denied. He choked, and rushed into the house without more ado.
“Poor boy!” his mother said.
“Poor boy nothing!” fumed Mr. Baxter. “He's about lost his mind over
that Miss Pratt. Think of his coming out here and starting a regular
debating society declamation before his mother and father! Why, I never
heard anything like it in my life! I don't like to hurt his feelings,
and I'd give him anything I could afford that would do him any good,
but all he wants it for now is to splurge around in at this party before
that little yellow-haired girl! I guess he can wear the kind of clothes
most of the other boys wear--the kind _I_ wore at parties--and never
thought of wearing anything else. What's the world getting to be
like? Seventeen years old and throws a fit because he can't have a
dress-suit!”
Mrs. Baxter looked thoughtful. “But--but suppose he felt he couldn't go
to the dance unless he wore one, poor boy--”
“All the better,” said Mr. Baxter, firmly. “Do him good to keep away and
get his mind on something else.”
“Of course,” she suggested, with some timidity, “forty dollars isn't a
great deal of money, and a ready-made suit, just to begin with--”
Naturally, Mr. Baxter perceived whither she was drifting. “Forty dollars
isn't a thousand,” he interrupted, “but what you want to throw it away
for? One reason a boy of seventeen oughtn't to have evening clothes
is the way he behaves with ANY clothes. Forty dollars! Why, only this
summer he sat down on Jane's open paint-box, twice in one week!”
“Well--Miss Pratt IS going away, and the dance will be her last night.
I'm afraid it would really hurt him to miss it. I remember once, before
we were engaged--that evening before papa took me abroad, and you--”
“It's no use, mamma,” he said. “We were both in the twenties--why, _I_
was six years older than Willie, even then. There's no comparison at
all. I'll let him order a dress-suit on his twenty-first birthday and
not a minute before. I don't believe in it, and I intend to see that
he gets all this stuff out of his system. He's got to learn some hard
sense!”
Mrs. Baxter shook her head doubtfully, but she said no more. Perhaps she
regretted a little that she had caused Mr. Baxter's evening clothes to
be so expansively enlarged--for she looked rather regretful. She also
looked rather incomprehensible, not to say cryptic, during the long
silence which followed, and Mr. Baxter resumed his rocking, unaware of
the fixity of gaze which his wife maintained upon him--a thing the most
loyal will do sometimes.
The incomprehensible look disappeared before long; but the regretful
one was renewed in the mother's eyes whenever she caught glimpses of her
son, that day, and at the table, where William's manner was gentle--even
toward his heartless father.
Underneath that gentleness, the harried self of William was no longer
debating a desperate resolve, but had fixed upon it, and on the
following afternoon Jane chanced to be a witness of some resultant
actions. She came to her mother with an account of them.
“Mamma, what you s'pose Willie wants of those two ole market-baskets
that were down cellar?”
“Why, Jane?”
“Well, he carried 'em in his room, an' then he saw me lookin'; an' he
said, 'G'way from here!' an' shut the door. He looks so funny! What's he
want of those ole baskets, mamma?”
“I don't know. Perhaps he doesn't even know, himself, Jane.”
But William did know, definitely. He had set the baskets upon chairs,
and now, with pale determination, he was proceeding to fill them. When
his task was completed the two baskets contained:
One “heavy-weight winter suit of clothes.”
One “light-weight summer suit of clothes.”
One cap.
One straw hat.
Two pairs of white flannel trousers.
Two Madras shirts.
Two flannel shirts.
Two silk shirts.
Seven soft collars.
Three silk neckties.
One crocheted tie.
Eight pairs of socks.
One pair of patent-leather shoes.
One pair of tennis-shoes.
One overcoat.
Some underwear.
One two-foot shelf of books, consisting of several sterling works
upon mathematics, in a damaged condition; five of Shakespeare's plays,
expurgated for schools and colleges, and also damaged; a work upon
political economy, and another upon the science of physics; Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary; How to Enter a Drawing-Room and Five Hundred
Other Hints; Witty Sayings from Here and There; Lorna Doone; Quentin
Durward; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a very old copy of Moths,
and a small Bible.
William spread handkerchiefs upon the two over-bulging cargoes, that
their nature might not be disclosed to the curious, and, after listening
a moment at his door, took the baskets, one upon each arm, then went
quickly down the stairs and out of the house, out of the yard, and into
the alley--by which route he had modestly chosen to travel.
... After an absence of about two hours he returned empty-handed
and anxious. “Mother, I want to speak to you,” he said, addressing Mrs
Baxter in a voice which clearly proved the strain of these racking days.
“I want to speak to you about something important.”
“Yes, Willie?”
“Please send Jane away. I can't talk about important things with a child
in the room.”
Jane naturally wished to stay, since he was going to say something
important. “Mamma, do I HAF to go?”
“Just a few minutes, dear.”
Jane walked submissively out of the door, leaving it open behind her.
Then, having gone about six feet farther, she halted and, preserving a
breathless silence, consoled herself for her banishment by listening to
what was said, hearing it all as satisfactorily as if she had remained
in the room. Quiet, thoughtful children, like Jane, avail themselves of
these little pleasures oftener than is suspected.
“Mother,” said William, with great intensity, “I want to ask you please
to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”
“What for, Willie?”
“Mother, I just ask you to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”
“But what FOR?”
“Mother, I don't feel I can discuss it any; I simply ask you: Will you
lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”
Mrs. Baxter laughed gently. “I don't think I could, Willie, but
certainly I should want to know what for.”
“Mother, I am going on eighteen years of age, and when I ask for a
small sum of money like three dollars and sixty cents I think I might be
trusted to know how to use it for my own good without having to answer
questions like a ch--”
“Why, Willie,” she exclaimed, “you ought to have plenty of money of your
own!”
“Of course I ought,” he agreed, warmly. “If you'd ask father to give me
a regular allow--”
“No, no; I mean you ought to have plenty left out of that old junk and
furniture I let you sell last month. You had over nine dollars!'
“That was five weeks ago,” William explained, wearily.
“But you certainly must have some of it left. Why, it was MORE than nine
dollars, I believe! I think it was nearer ten. Surely you haven't--”
“Ye gods!” cried the goaded William. “A person going on eighteen
years old ought to be able to spend nine dollars in five weeks without
everybody's acting like it was a crime! Mother, I ask you the simple
question: Will you PLEASE lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”
“I don't think I ought to, dear. I'm sure your father wouldn't wish
me to, unless you'll tell me what you want it for. In fact, I won't
consider it at all unless you do tell me.”
“You won't do it?” he quavered.
She shook her head gently. “You see, dear, I'm afraid the reason you
don't tell me is because you know that I wouldn't give it to you if I
knew what you wanted it for.”
This perfect diagnosis of the case so disheartened him that after a few
monosyllabic efforts to continue the conversation with dignity he gave
it up, and left in such a preoccupation with despondency that he passed
the surprised Jane in the hall without suspecting what she had been
doing.
That evening, after dinner, he addressed to his father an impassioned
appeal for three dollars and sixty cents, laying such stress of pathos
on his principal argument that if he couldn't have a dress-suit, at
least he ought to be given three dollars and sixty CENTS (the emphasis
is William's) that Mr. Baxter was moved in the direction of consent--but
not far enough. “I'd like to let you have it, Willie,” he said, excusing
himself for refusal, “but your mother felt SHE oughtn't to do it unless
you'd say what you wanted it for, and I'm sure she wouldn't like me to
do it. I can't let you have it unless you get her to say she wants me
to.”
Thus advised, the unfortunate made another appeal to his mother the next
day, and, having brought about no relaxation of the situation, again
petitioned his father, on the following evening. So it went; the torn
and driven William turning from parent to parent; and surely, since the
world began, the special sum of three dollars and sixty cents has never
been so often mentioned in any one house and in the same space of time
as it was in the house of the Baxters during Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday of that oppressive week.
But on Friday William disappeared after breakfast and did not return to
lunch.
XXIV
CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN
Mrs. Baxter was troubled. During the afternoon she glanced often from
the open window of the room where she had gone to sew, but the peaceful
neighborhood continued to be peaceful, and no sound of the harassed
footsteps of William echoed from the pavement. However, she saw Genesis
arrive (in his weekday costume) to do some weeding, and Jane immediately
skip forth for mingled purposes of observation and conversation.
“What DO they say?” thought Mrs. Baxter, observing that both Jane and
Genesis were unusually animated. But for once that perplexity was to be
dispersed. After an exciting half-hour Jane came flying to her mother,
breathless.
“Mamma,” she cried, “I know where Willie is! Genesis told me, 'cause he
saw him, an' he talked to him while he was doin' it.”
“Doing what? Where?”
“Mamma, listen! What you think Willie's doin'? I bet you can't g--”
“Jane!” Mrs Baxter spoke sharply. “Tell me what Genesis said, at once.”
“Yes'm. Willie's sittin' in a lumber-yard that Genesis comes by on his
way from over on the avynoo where all the colored people live--an' he's
countin' knot-holes in shingles.”
“He is WHAT?”