it himself, only he says it would be too slow. This is the way it is,
mamma. Listen, mamma, because this is just exackly the way it is. Well,
this lumber-yard man got into some sort of a fuss because he bought
millions an' millions of shingles, mamma, that had too many knots in,
an' the man don't want to pay for 'em, or else the store where he bought
'em won't take 'em back, an' they got to prove how many shingles are
bad shingles, or somep'm, an' anyway, mamma, that's what Willie's doin'.
Every time he comes to a bad shingle, mamma, he puts it somewheres else,
or somep'm like that, mamma, an' every time he's put a thousand bad
shingles in this other place they give him six cents. He gets the six
cents to keep, mamma--an' that's what he's been doin' all day!”
“Good gracious!”
“Oh, but that's nothing, mamma--just you wait till you hear the rest.
THAT part of it isn't anything a TALL, mamma! You wouldn't hardly notice
that part of it if you knew the other part of it, mamma. Why, that
isn't ANYTHING!” Jane made demonstrations of scorn for the insignificant
information already imparted.
“Jane!”
“Yes'm?”
“I want to know everything Genesis told you,” said her mother, “and I
want you to tell it as quickly as you can.”
“Well, I AM tellin' it, mamma!” Jane protested. “I'm just BEGINNING to
tell it. I can't tell it unless there's a beginning, can I? How could
there be ANYTHING unless you had to begin it, mamma?”
“Try your best to go on, Jane!”
“Yes'm. Well, Genesis says--Mamma!” Jane interrupted herself with a
little outcry. “Oh! I bet THAT'S what he had those two market-baskets
for! Yes, sir! That's just what he did! An' then he needed the rest
o' the money an' you an' papa wouldn't give him any, an' so he began
countin' shingles to-day 'cause to-night's the night of the party an' he
just HASS to have it!”
Mrs. Baxter, who had risen to her feet, recalled the episode of the
baskets and sank into a chair. “How did Genesis know Willie wanted forty
dollars, and if Willie's pawned something how did Genesis know THAT? Did
Willie tell Gen--”
“Oh no, mamma, Willie didn't want forty dollars--only fourteen!”
“But he couldn't get even the cheapest readymade dress-suit for fourteen
dollars.”
“Mamma, you're gettin' it all mixed up!” Jane cried. “Listen, mamma!
Genesis knows all about a second-hand store over on the avynoo; an' it
keeps 'most everything, an' Genesis says it's the nicest store! It keeps
waiter suits all the way up to nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents.
Well, an' Genesis wants to get one of those suits, so he goes in there
all the time, an' talks to the man an' bargains an' bargains with him,
'cause Genesis says this man is the bargainest man in the wide worl',
mamma! That's what Genesis says. Well, an' so this man's name is One-eye
Beljus, mamma. That's his name, an' Genesis says so. Well, an' so this
man that Genesis told me about, that keeps the store--I mean One-eye
Beljus, mamma--well, One-eye Beljus had Willie's name written down in a
book, an' he knew Genesis worked for fam'lies that have boys like Willie
in 'em, an' this morning One-eye Beljus showed Genesis Willie's name
written down in this book, an' One-eye Beljus asked Genesis if he knew
anybody by that name an' all about him. Well, an' so at first Genesis
pretended he was tryin' to remember, because he wanted to find out what
Willie went there for. Genesis didn't tell any stories, mamma; he
just pretended he couldn't remember, an' so, well, One-eye Beljus kept
talkin' an' pretty soon Genesis found out all about it. One-eye Beljus
said Willie came in there an' tried on the coat of one of those waiter
suits--”
“Oh no!” gasped Mrs. Baxter.
“Yes'm, an' One-eye Beljus said it was the only one that would fit
Willie, an' One-eye Beljus told Willie that suit was worth fourteen
dollars, an' Willie said he didn't have any money, but he'd like to
trade something else for it. Well, an' so One-eye Beljus said this was
an awful fine suit an' the only one he had that had b'longed to a white
gentleman. Well, an' so they bargained, an' bargained, an' bargained,
an' BARGAINED! An' then, well, an' so at last Willie said he'd go an'
get everything that b'longed to him, an' One-eye Beljus could pick out
enough to make fourteen dollars' worth, an' then Willie could have
the suit. Well, an' so Willie came home an' put everything he had that
b'longed to him into those two baskets, mamma--that's just what he
did, 'cause Genesis says he told One-eye Beljus it was everything that
b'longed to him, an' that would take two baskets, mamma. Well, then,
an' so he told One-eye Beljus to pick out fourteen dollars' worth, an'
One-eye Beljus ast Willie if he didn't have a watch. Well, Willie took
out his watch an' One-eye Beljus said it was an awful bad watch, but he
would put it in for a dollar; an' he said, 'I'll put your necktie pin
in for forty cents more,' so Willie took it out of his necktie an' then
One-eye Beljus said it would take all the things in the baskets to make
I forget how much, mamma, an' the watch would be a dollar more, an' the
pin forty cents, an' that would leave just three dollars an' sixty cents
more for Willie to pay before he could get the suit.”
Mrs. Baxter's face had become suffused with high color, but she wished
to know all that Genesis had said, and, mastering her feelings with an
effort, she told Jane to proceed--a command obeyed after Jane had taken
several long breaths.
“Well, an' so the worst part of it is, Genesis says, it's because that
suit is haunted.”
“What!”
“Yes'm,” said Jane, solemnly; “Genesis says it's haunted. Genesis says
everybody over on the avynoo knows all about that suit, an' he says
that's why One-eye Beljus never could sell it before. Genesis says
One-eye Beljus tried to sell it to a colored man for three dollars,
but the man said he wouldn't put in on for three hunderd dollars, an'
Genesis says HE wouldn't, either, because it belonged to a Dago waiter
that--that--” Jane's voice sank to a whisper of unctuous horror. She was
having a wonderful time! “Mamma, this Dago waiter, he lived over on the
avynoo, an' he took a case-knife he'd sharpened--AN' HE CUT A LADY'S
HEAD OFF WITH IT!”
Mrs. Baxter screamed faintly.
“An' he got hung, mamma! If you don't believe it, you can ask One-eye
Beljus--I guess HE knows! An' you can ask--”
“Hush!”
“An' he sold this suit to One-eye Beljus when he was in jail, mamma. He
sold it to him before he got hung, mamma.”
“Hush, Jane!”
But Jane couldn't hush now. “An' he had that suit on when he cut the
lady's head off, mamma, an' that's why it's haunted. They cleaned it all
up excep' a few little spots of bl--”
“JANE!” shouted her mother. “You must not talk about such things, and
Genesis mustn't tell, you stories of that sort!”
“Well, how could he help it, if he told me about Willie?” Jane urged,
reasonably.
“Never mind! Did that crazy ch--Did Willie LEAVE the baskets in that
dreadful place?”
“Yes'm--an' his watch an' pin,” Jane informed her, impressively. “An'
One-eye Beljus wanted to know if Genesis knew Willie, because One-eye
Beljus wanted to know if Genesis thought Willie could get the three
dollars an; sixty cents, an' One-eye Beljus wanted to know if Genesis
thought he could get anything more out of him besides that. He told
Genesis he hadn't told Willie he COULD have the suit, after all; he just
told him he THOUGHT he could, but he wouldn't say for certain till he
brought him the three dollars an' sixty cents. So Willie left all his
things there, an' his watch an--”
“That will do!” Mrs. Baxter's voice was sharper than it had ever been in
Jane's recollection. “I don't need to hear any more--and I don't WANT to
hear any more!”
Jane was justly aggrieved. “But, mamma, it isn't MY fault!”
Mrs. Baxter's lips parted to speak, but she checked herself. “Fault?”
she said, gravely. “I wonder whose fault it really is!”
And with that she went hurriedly into William's room and made a brief
inspection of his clothes-closet and dressing-table. Then, as Jane
watched her in awed silence, she strode to the window, and called,
loudly:
“Genesis!”
“Yes'm?” came the voice from below.
“Go to that lumber-yard where Mr. William is at work and bring him
here to me at once. If he declines to come, tell him--” Her voice broke
oddly; she choked, but Jane could not decide with what emotion. “Tell
him--tell him I ordered you to use force if necessary! Hurry!”
“YES'M!”
Jane ran to the window in time to see Genesis departing seriously
through the back gate.
“Mamma--”
“Don't talk to me now, Jane,” Mrs. Baxter said, crisply. “I want you to
go down in the yard, and when Willie comes tell him I'm waiting for him
here in his own room. And don't come with him, Jane. Run!”
“Yes, mamma.” Jane was pleased with this appointment; she anxiously
desired to be the first to see how Willie “looked.”
... He looked flurried and flustered and breathless, and there were
blisters upon the reddened palms of his hands. “What on earth's the
matter, mother?” he asked, as he stood panting before her. “Genesis said
something was wrong, and he said you told him to hit me if I wouldn't
come.”
“Oh NO!” she cried. “I only meant I thought perhaps you wouldn't obey
any ordinary message--”
“Well, well, it doesn't matter, but please hurry and say what you want
to, because I got to get back and--”
“No,” Mrs. Baxter said, quietly, “you're not going back to count any
more shingles, Willie. How much have you earned?”
He swallowed, but spoke bravely. “Thirty-six cents. But I've been
getting lots faster the last two hours and there's a good deal of time
before six o'clock. Mother--”
“No,” she said. “You're going over to that horrible place where you've
left your clothes and your watch and all those other things in the two
baskets, and you're going to bring them home at once.”
“Mother!” he cried, aghast. “Who told you?”
“It doesn't matter. You don't want your father to find out, do you? Then
get those things back here as quickly as you can. They'll have to be
fumigated after being in that den.”
“They've never been out of the baskets,” he protested, hotly, “except
just to be looked at. They're MY things, mother, and I had a right to
do what I needed to with 'em, didn't I?” His utterance became difficult.
“You and father just CAN'T understand--and you won't do anything to help
me--”
“Willie, you can go to the party,” she said, gently. “You didn't need
those frightful clothes at all.”
“I do!” he cried. “I GOT to have 'em! I CAN'T go in my day clo'es!
There's a reason you wouldn't understand why I can't. I just CAN'T!”
“Yes,” she said, “you can go to the party.”
“I can't, either! Not unless you give me three dollars and twenty-four
cents, or unless I can get back to the lumber-yard and earn the rest
before--”
“No!” And the warm color that had rushed over Mrs. Baxter during Jane's
sensational recital returned with a vengeance. Her eyes flashed. “If
you'd rather I sent a policeman for those baskets, I'll send one. I
should prefer to do it--much! And to have that rascal arrested. If you
don't want me to send a policeman you can go for them yourself, but
you must start within ten minutes, because if you don't I'll telephone
headquarters. Ten minutes, Willie, and I mean it!”
He cried out, protesting. She would make him a thing of scorn forever
and soil his honor, if she sent a policeman. Mr. Beljus was a fair
and honest tradesman, he explained, passionately, and had not made the
approaches in this matter. Also, the garments in question, though not
entirely new, nor of the highest mode, were of good material and in
splendid condition. Unmistakably they were evening clothes, and such a
bargain at fourteen dollars that William would guarantee to sell them
for twenty after he had worn them this one evening. Mr. Beljus himself
had said that he would not even think of letting them go at fourteen
to anybody else, and as for the two poor baskets of worn and useless
articles offered in exchange, and a bent scarfpin and a worn-out old
silver watch that had belonged to great-uncle Ben--why, the ten dollars
and forty cents allowed upon them was beyond all ordinary liberality;
it was almost charity. There was only one place in town where evening
clothes were rented, and the suspicious persons in charge had insisted
that William obtain from his father a guarantee to insure the return of
the garments in perfect condition. So that was hopeless. And wasn't it
better, also, to wear clothes which had known only one previous occupant
(as was the case with Mr. Beljus's offering) than to hire what chance
hundreds had hired? Finally, there was only one thing to be considered
and this was the fact that William HAD to have those clothes!
“Six minutes,” said Mrs. Baxter, glancing implacably at her watch. “When
it's ten I'll telephone.”
And the end of it was, of course, victory for the woman--victory both
moral and physical. Three-quarters of an hour later she was unburdening
the contents of the two baskets and putting the things back in place,
illuminating these actions with an expression of strong distaste--in
spite of broken assurances that Mr. Beljus had not more than touched any
of the articles offered to him for valuation.
... At dinner, which was unusually early that evening, Mrs. Baxter did
not often glance toward her son; she kept her eyes from that white face
and spent most of her time in urging upon Mr. Baxter that he should
be prompt in dressing for a card-club meeting which he and she were
to attend that evening. These admonitions of hers were continued so
pressingly that Mr. Baxter, after protesting that there was no use in
being a whole hour too early, groaningly went to dress without even
reading his paper.
William had retired to his own room, where he lay upon his bed in the
darkness. He heard the evening noises of the house faintly through the
closed door: voices and the clatter of metal and china from the far-away
kitchen, Jane's laugh in the hall, the opening and closing of the doors.
Then his father seemed to be in distress about something. William heard
him complaining to Mrs. Baxter, and though the words were indistinct,
the tone was vigorously plaintive. Mrs. Baxter laughed and appeared
to make light of his troubles, whatever they were--and presently
their footsteps were audible from the stairway; the front door closed
emphatically, and they were gone.
Everything was quiet now. The open window showed as a greenish oblong
set in black, and William knew that in a little while there would come
through the stillness of that window the distant sound of violins. That
was a moment he dreaded with a dread that ached. And as he lay on his
dreary bed he thought of brightly lighted rooms where other boys were
dressing eagerly faces and hair shining, hearts beating high--boys who
would possess this last evening and the “last waltz together,” the last
smile and the last sigh.
It did not once enter his mind that he could go to the dance in his
“best suit,” or that possibly the other young people at the party would
be too busy with their own affairs to notice particularly what he wore.
It was the unquestionable and granite fact, to his mind, that the whole
derisive World would know the truth about his earlier appearances in his
father's clothes. And that was a form of ruin not to be faced. In the
protective darkness and seclusion of William's bedroom, it is possible
that smarting eyes relieved themselves by blinking rather energetically;
it is even possible that there was a minute damp spot upon the pillow.
Seventeen cannot always manage the little boy yet alive under all the
coverings.
Now arrived that moment he had most painfully anticipated, and
dance-music drifted on the night;--but there came a tapping upon his
door and a soft voice spoke.
“Will-ee?”
With a sharp exclamation William swung his legs over the edge of the
bed and sat up. Of all things he desired not, he desired no conversation
with, or on the part of, Jane. But he had forgotten to lock his
door--the handle turned, and a dim little figure marched in.
“Willie, Adelia's goin' to put me to bed.”
“You g'way from here,” he said, huskily. “I haven't got time to talk to
you. I'm busy.”
“Well, you can wait a minute, can't you?” she asked, reasonably. “I haf
to tell you a joke on mamma.”
“I don't want to hear any jokes!”
“Well, I HAF to tell you this one 'cause she told me to! Oh!” Jane
clapped her hand over her mouth and jumped up and down, offering a
fantastic silhouette against the light of the Open door. “Oh, oh, OH!”
“What's matter?”
“She said I mustn't, MUSTN'T tell that she told me to tell! My goodness!
I forgot that! Mamma took me off alone right after dinner, an' she told
me to tell you this joke on her a little after she an' papa had left
the house, but she said, 'Above all THINGS,' she said, 'DON'T let Willie
know _I_ said to tell him.' That's just what she said, an' here that's
the very first thing I had to go an' do!”
“Well, what of it?”
Jane quieted down. The pangs of her remorse were lost in her love of
sensationalism, and her voice sank to the thrilling whisper which it was
one of her greatest pleasures to use. “Did you hear what a fuss papa was
makin' when he was dressin' for the card-party?”
“_I_ don't care if--”
“He had to go in his reg'lar clo'es!” whispered Jane, triumphantly.
“An' this is the joke on mamma: you know that tailor that let papa's
dress-suit 'way, 'way out; well, Mamma thinks that tailor must think
she's crazy, or somep'm 'cause she took papa's dress-suit to him last
Monday to get it pressed for this card-party, an she guesses he must of
understood her to tell him to do lots besides just pressin' it. Anyway,
he went an' altered it, an' he took it 'way, 'way IN again; an' this
afternoon when it came back it was even tighter 'n what it was in the
first place, an' papa couldn't BEGIN to get into it! Well, an' so it's
all pressed an' ev'ything, an' she stopped on the way out, an' whispered
to me that she'd got so upset over the joke on her that she couldn't
remember where she put it when she took it out o' papa's room after he
gave up tryin' to get inside of it. An' that,” cried Jane--“that's
the funniest thing of all! Why, it's layin' right on her bed this very
minute!”
In one bound William leaped through the open door. Two seconds sufficed
for his passage through the hall to his mother's bedroom--and there,
neatly spread upon the lace coverlet and brighter than coronation robes,
fairer than Joseph's holy coat, It lay!
XXV
YOUTH AND MR. PARCHER
As a hurried worldling, in almost perfectly fitting evening clothes,
passed out of his father's gateway and hurried toward the place whence
faintly came the sound of dance-music, a child's voice called sweetly
from an unidentified window of the darkened house behind him:
“Well, ANYWAY, you try and have a good time, Willie!”
William made no reply; he paused not in his stride. Jane's farewell
injunction, though obviously not ill-intended, seemed in poor taste, and
a reply might have encouraged her to believe that, in some measure at
least, he condescended to discuss his inner life with her. He departed
rapidly, but with hauteur. The moon was up, but shade-trees were thick
along the sidewalk, and the hauteur was invisible to any human eye;
nevertheless, William considered it necessary.
Jane's friendly but ill-chosen “ANYWAY” had touched doubts already
annoying him. He was certain to be late to the party--so late, indeed,
that it might prove difficult to obtain a proper number of dances with
the sacred girl in whose honor the celebration was being held. Too
many were steeped in a sense of her sacredness, well he wot! and he was
unable to find room in his apprehensive mind for any doubt that these
others would be accursedly diligent.
But as he hastened onward his spirits rose, and he did reply to Jane,
after all, though he had placed a hundred yards between them.
“Yes, and you can bet your bottom dollar I will, too!” he muttered,
between his determined teeth.
The very utterance of the words increased the firmness of his decision,
and at the same time cheered him. His apprehensions fell away, and a
glamorous excitement took their place, as he turned a corner and the
music burst more loudly upon his tingling ear. For there, not half-way
to the next street, the fairy scene lay spread before him.
Spellbound groups of uninvited persons, most of them colored, rested
their forearms upon the upper rail of the Parchers' picket fence,
offering to William's view a silhouette like that of a crowd at a fire.
Beyond the fence, bright forms went skimming, shimmering, wavering over
a white platform, while high overhead the young moon sprayed a thinner
light down through the maple leaves, to where processions of rosy globes
hung floating in the blue night. The mild breeze trembled to the silver
patterings of a harp, to the sweet, barbaric chirping of plucked strings
of violin and 'cello--and swooned among the maple leaves to the rhythmic
crooning of a flute. And, all the while, from the platform came the
sounds of little cries in girlish voices, and the cadenced shuffling
of young feet, where the witching dancemusic had its way, as ever and
forever, with big and little slippers.
The heart of William had behaved tumultuously the summer long, whenever
his eyes beheld those pickets of the Parchers' fence, but now it outdid
all its previous riotings. He was forced to open his mouth and gasp
for breath, so deep was his draught of that young wine, romance.
Yonder--somewhere in the breath-taking radiance--danced his Queen with
all her Court about her. Queen and Court, thought William, and nothing
less exorbitant could have expressed his feeling. For seventeen needs
only some paper lanterns, a fiddle, and a pretty girl--and Versailles is
all there!
The moment was so rich that William crossed the street with a slower
step. His mood changed: an exaltation had come upon him, though he was
never for an instant unaware of the tragedy beneath all this worldly
show and glamor. It was the last night of the divine visit; to-morrow
the town would lie desolate, a hollow shell in the dust, without her.
Miss Pratt would be gone--gone utterly--gone away on the TRAIN! But
to-night was just beginning, and to-night he would dance with her; he
would dance and dance with her--he would dance and dance like mad! He
and she, poetic and fated pair, would dance on and on! They would be
intoxicated by the lights--the lights, the flowers, and the music. Nay,
the flowers might droop, the lights might go out, the music cease and
dawn come--she and he would dance recklessly on--on--on!
A sense of picturesqueness--his own picturesqueness--made him walk
rather theatrically as he passed through the groups of humble onlookers
outside the picket fence. Many of these turned to stare at the belated
guest, and William was unconscious of neither their low estate nor his
own quality as a patrician man-about-town in almost perfectly fitting
evening dress. A faint, cold smile was allowed to appear upon his lips,
and a fragment from a story he had read came momentarily to his mind....
“Through the gaping crowds the young Augustan noble was borne down
from the Palatine, scornful in his jeweled litter....”
An admiring murmur reached William's ear.
“OH, oh, honey! Look attem long-tail suit! 'At's a rich boy, honey!”
“Yessum, SO! Bet he got his pockets pack' full o' twenty-dolluh gol'
pieces right iss minute!”
“You right, honey!”
William allowed the coldness of his faint smile to increase to become
scornful. These poor sidewalk creatures little knew what seethed inside
the alabaster of the young Augustan noble! What was it to THEM that this
was Miss Pratt's last night and that he intended to dance and dance with
her, on and on?
Almost sternly he left these squalid lives behind him and passed to the
festal gateway.
Upon one of the posts of that gateway there rested the elbow of a
contemplative man, middleaged or a little worse. Of all persons having
pleasure or business within the bright inclosure, he was, that evening,
the least important; being merely the background parent who paid the
bills. However, even this unconsidered elder shared a thought in common
with the Augustan now approaching: Mr. Parcher had just been thinking
that there was true romance in the scene before him.
But what Mr. Parcher contemplated as romance arose from the fact that
these young people were dancing on a spot where their great-grandfathers
had scalped Indians. Music was made for them by descendants, it might
well be, of Romulus, of Messalina, of Benvenuto Cellini, and, around
behind the house, waiting to serve the dancers with light food
and drink, lounged and gossiped grandchildren of the Congo, only
a generation or so removed from dances for which a chance stranger
furnished both the occasion and the refreshments. Such, in brief, was
Mr. Parcher's peculiar view of what constituted the romantic element.