residential bush, peeped over it, not at Mrs. Smith, but at a boy of ten
or eleven who was passing along the sidewalk. Her expression was gravely
interested, somewhat complacent; and Mrs. Smith was not so lacking in
perception that she failed to understand how completely--for the time
being, at least--calling was suspended.
The boy whistled briskly, “My country, 'tis of thee,” and though his
knowledge of the air failed him when he finished the second line, he
was not disheartened, but began at the beginning again, continuing
repeatedly after this fashion to offset monotony by patriotism. He
whistled loudly; he walked with ostentatious intent to be at some heavy
affair in the distance; his ears were red. He looked neither to the
right nor to the left.
That is, he looked neither to the right nor to the left until he had
passed the Baxters' fence. But when he had gone as far as the upper
corner of the fence beyond, he turned his head and looked back, without
any expression--except that of a whistler--at Jane. And thus, still
whistling “My country, 'tis of thee,” and with blank pink face over his
shoulder, he proceeded until he was out of sight.
“Who was that boy?” the new neighbor then inquired.
“It's Freddie,” said Jane, placidly. “He's in our Sunday-school. He's in
love of me.”
“JANE!”
Again the outraged and ink-stained countenance glared down from the
window.
“What you want?” Jane asked.
“What you MEAN talking about such things?” William demanded. “In all my
life I never heard anything as disgusting! Shame on you!”
The little girl from across the street looked upward thoughtfully. “He's
mad,” she remarked, and, regardless of Jane's previous information, “It
IS your papa, isn't it?” she insisted.
“No!” said Jane, testily. “I told you five times it's my brother
Willie.”
“Oh!” said the little girl, and, grasping the fact that William's
position was, in dignity and authority, negligible, compared with that
which she had persisted in imagining, she felt it safe to tint her
upward gaze with disfavor. “He acts kind of crazy,” she murmured.
“He's in love of Miss Pratt,” said Jane. “She's goin' away to-day. She
said she'd go before, but to-day she IS! Mr. Parcher, where she visits,
he's almost dead, she's stayed so long. She's awful, I think.”
William, to whom all was audible, shouted, hoarsely, “I'll see to YOU!”
and disappeared from the window.
“Will he come down here?” the little girl asked, taking a step toward
the gate.
“No. He's just gone to call mamma. All she'll do' ll be to tell us to go
play somewheres else. Then we can go talk to Genesis.”
“Who?”
“Genesis. He's puttin' a load of coal in the cellar window with a
shovel. He's nice.”
“What's he put the coal in the window for?”
“He's a colored man,” said Jane.
“Shall we go talk to him now?”
“No,” Jane said, thoughtfully. “Let's be playin' callers when mamma
comes to tell us to go 'way. What was your name?”
“Rannie.”
“No, it wasn't.”
“It is too, Rannie,” the little girl insisted. “My whole name's Mary
Randolph Kirsted, but my short name's Rannie.”
Jane laughed. “What a funny name!” she said. “I didn't mean your real
name; I meant your callers' name. One of us was Mrs. Jones, and one
was--”
“I want to be Mrs. Jones,” said Rannie.
“Oh, my DEAR Mrs. Jones,” Jane began at once, “I want to tell you
about my lovely chuldren. I have two, one only seven years old, and the
other--”
“Jane!” called Mrs. Baxter from William's window.
“Yes'm?”
“You must go somewhere else to play. Willie's trying to work at his
studies up here, and he says you've disturbed him very much.”
“Yes'm.”
The obedient Jane and her friend turned to go, and as they went, Miss
Mary Randolph Kirsted allowed her uplifted eyes to linger with increased
disfavor upon William, who appeared beside Mrs. Baxter at the window.
“I tell you what let's do,” Rannie suggested in a lowered voice. “He got
so fresh with us, an' made your mother come, an' all, let's--let's--”
She hesitated.
“Let's what?” Jane urged her, in an eager whisper.
“Let's think up somep'n he won't like--an' DO it!”
They disappeared round a corner of the house, their heads close
together.
XXIX
“DON'T FORGET!”
Up-stairs, Mrs. Baxter moved to the door of her son's room, pretending
to be unconscious of the gaze he maintained upon her. Mustering courage
to hum a little tune and affecting inconsequence, she had nearly crossed
the threshold when he said, sternly:
“And this is all you intend to say to that child?”
“Why, yes, Willie.”
“And yet I told you what she said!” he cried. “I told you I HEARD her
stand there and tell that dirty-faced little girl how that idiot boy
that's always walkin' past here four or five times a day, whistling and
looking back, was in 'love of' her! Ye gods! What kind of a person will
she grow up into if you don't punish her for havin' ideas like that at
her age?”
Mrs. Baxter regarded him mildly, not replying, and he went on, with loud
indignation:
“I never heard of such a thing! That Worm walkin' past here four or five
times a day just to look at JANE! And her standing there, calmly tellin'
that sooty-faced little girl, 'He's in love of me'! Why, it's enough to
sicken a man! Honestly, if I had my way, I'd see that both she and that
little Freddie Banks got a first-class whipping!”
“Don't you think, Willie,” said Mrs. Baxter--“don't you think that,
considering the rather noncommittal method of Freddie's courtship, you
are suggesting extreme measures?”
“Well, SHE certainly ought to be punished!” he insisted, and then, with
a reversal to agony, he shuddered. “That's the least of it!” he cried.
“It's the insulting things you always allow her to say of one of the
noblest girls in the United States--THAT'S what counts! On the very last
day--yes, almost the last hour--that Miss Pratt's in this town, you let
your only daughter stand there and speak disrespectfully of her--and
then all you do is tell her to 'go and play somewhere else'! I don't
understand your way of bringing up a child,” he declared, passionately.
“I do NOT!”
“There, there, Willie,” Mrs. Baxter said. “You're all wrought up--”
“I am NOT wrought up!” shouted William. “Why should I be charged with--”
“Now, now!” she said. “You'll feel better to-morrow.”
“What do you mean by that?” he demanded, breathing deeply.
For reply she only shook her head in an odd little way, and in her
parting look at him there was something at once compassionate, amused,
and reassuring.
“You'll be all right, Willie,” she said, softly, and closed the door.
Alone, William lifted clenched hands in a series of tumultuous
gestures at the ceiling; then he moaned and sank into a chair at his
writing-table. Presently a comparative calm was restored to him, and
with reverent fingers he took from a drawer a one-pound box of candy,
covered with white tissue-paper, girdled with blue ribbon. He set the
box gently beside him upon the table; then from beneath a large, green
blotter drew forth some scribbled sheets. These he placed before him,
and, taking infinite pains with his handwriting, slowly copied:
DEAR LOLA--I presume when you are reading these lines it will be this
afternoon and you will be on the train moving rapidly away from this old
place here farther and farther from it all. As I sit here at my old desk
and look back upon it all while I am writing this farewell letter I hope
when you are reading it you also will look back upon it all and think
of one you called (Alias) Little Boy Baxter. As I sit here this morning
that you are going away at last I look back and I cannot rember any
summer in my whole life which has been like this summer, because a great
change has come over me this summer. If you would like to know what this
means it was something like I said when John Watson got there yesterday
afternoon and interrupted what I said. May you enjoy this candy and think
of the giver. I will put something in with this letter. It is something
maybe you would like to have and in exchange I would give all I possess
for one of you if you would send it to me when you get home. Please do
this for now my heart is braking. Yours sincerely, WILLIAM S. BAXTER
(ALIAS) LITTLE BOY BAXTER.
William opened the box of candy and placed the letter upon the top layer
of chocolates. Upon the letter he placed a small photograph (wrapped in
tissue-paper) of himself. Then, with a pair of scissors, he trimmed
an oblong of white cardboard to fit into the box. Upon this piece of
cardboard he laboriously wrote, copying from a tortured, inky sheet
before him:
IN DREAM
BY WILLIAM S. BAXTER
The sunset light
Fades into night
But never will I forget
The smile that haunts me yet
Through the future four long years
I hope you will remember with tears
Whate'er my rank or station
Whilst receiving my education
Though far away you seem
I will see thee in dream.
He placed his poem between the photograph and the letter, closed the
box, and tied the tissue-paper about it again with the blue ribbon.
Throughout these rites (they were rites both in spirit and in manner) he
was subject to little catchings of the breath, half gulp, half sigh. But
the dolorous tokens passed, and he sat with elbows upon the table,
his chin upon his hands, reverie in his eyes. Tragedy had given way to
gentler pathos;--beyond question, something had measurably soothed him.
Possibly, even in this hour preceding the hour of parting, he knew a
little of that proud amazement which any poet is entitled to feel over
each new lyric miracle just wrought.
Perhaps he was helped, too, by wondering what Miss Pratt would think of
him when she read “In Dream,” on the train that afternoon. For reasons
purely intuitive, and decidedly without foundation in fact, he was
satisfied that no rival farewell poem would be offered her, and so it
may be that he thought “In Dream” might show her at last, in one blaze
of light, what her eyes had sometimes fleetingly intimated she did
perceive in part--the difference between William and such every-day,
rather well-meaning, fairly good-hearted people as Joe Bullitt, Wallace
Banks, Johnnie Watson, and others. Yes, when she came to read “In
Dream,” and to “look back upon it all,” she would surely know--at last!
And then, when the future four long years (while receiving his
education) had passed, he would go to her. He would go to her, and
she would take him by the hand, and lead him to her father, and say,
“Father, this is William.”
But William would turn to her, and, with the old, dancing light in his
eyes, “No, Lola,” he would say, “not William, but Ickle Boy Baxter!
Always and always, just that for you; oh, my dear!”
And then, as in story and film and farce and the pleasanter kinds of
drama, her father would say, with kindly raillery, “Well, when you two
young people get through, you'll find me in the library, where I have a
pretty good BUSINESS proposition to lay before YOU, young man!”
And when the white-waistcoated, white-side-burned old man had,
chuckling, left the room, William would slowly lift his arms; but Lola
would move back from him a step--only a step--and after laying a finger
archly upon her lips to check him, “Wait, sir!” she would say. “I have a
question to ask you, sir!”
“What question, Lola?”
“THIS question, sir!” she would reply. “In all that summer, sir, so long
ago, why did you never tell me what you WERE, until I had gone away and
it was too late to show you what I felt? Ah, Ickle Boy Baxter, I never
understood until I looked back upon it all, after I had read 'In Dream,'
on the train that day! THEN I KNEW!” “And now, Lola?” William would say.
“Do you understand me, NOW?”
Shyly she would advance the one short step she had put between
them, while he, with lifted, yearning arms, this time destined to no
disappointment----
At so vital a moment did Mrs. Baxter knock at his door and consoling
reverie cease to minister unto William. Out of the rosy sky he dropped,
falling miles in an instant, landing with a bump. He started, placed the
sacred box out of sight, and spoke gruffly.
“What you want?”
“I'm not coming in, Willie,” said his mother. “I just wanted to know--I
thought maybe you were looking out of the window and noticed where those
children went.”
“What children?”
“Jane and that little girl from across the street--Kirsted, her name
must be.”
“No. I did not.”
“I just wondered,” Mrs. Baxter said, timidly. “Genesis thinks he
heard the little Kirsted girl telling Jane she had plenty of money for
carfare. He thinks they went somewhere on a street-car. I thought maybe
you noticed wheth--”
“I told you I did not.”
“All right,” she said, placatively. “I didn't mean to bother you, dear.”
Following this there was a silence; but no sound of receding footsteps
indicated Mrs. Baxter's departure from the other side of the closed
door.
“Well, what you WANT?” William shouted.
“Nothing--nothing at all,” said the compassionate voice. “I just thought
I'd have lunch a little later than usual; not till half past one. That
is if--well, I thought probably you meant to go to the station to see
Miss Pratt off on the one-o'clock train.”
Even so friendly an interest as this must have appeared to the quivering
William an intrusion in his affairs, for he demanded, sharply:
“How'd you find out she's going at one o'clock?”
“Why--why, Jane mentioned it,” Mrs. Baxter replied, with obvious
timidity. “Jane said--”
She was interrupted by the loud, desperate sound of William's fist
smiting his writing-table, so sensitive was his condition. “This is just
unbearable!” he cried. “Nobody's business is safe from that child!”
“Why, Willie, I don't see how it matters if--”
He uttered a cry. “No! Nothing matters! Nothing matters at all! Do you
s'pose I want that child, with her insults, discussing when Miss Pratt
is or is not going away? Don't you know there are SOME things that have
no business to be talked about by every Tom, Dick, and Harry?”
“Yes, dear,” she said. “I understand, of course. Jane only told me she
met Mr. Parcher on the street, and he mentioned that Miss Pratt was
going at one o'clock to-day. That's all I--”
“You say you understand,” he wailed, shaking his head drearily at the
closed door, “and yet, even on such a day as this, you keep TALKING!
Can't you see sometimes there's times when a person can't stand to--”
“Yes, Willie,” Mrs. Baxter interposed, hurriedly. “Of course! I'm going
now. I have to go hunt up those children, anyway. You try to be back for
lunch at half past one--and don't worry, dear; you really WILL be all
right!”
She departed, a sigh from the abyss following her as she went down the
hall. Her comforting words meant nothing pleasant to her son, who felt
that her optimism was out of place and tactless. He had no intention to
be “all right,” and he desired nobody to interfere with his misery.
He went to his mirror, and, gazing long--long and piercingly--at the
William there limned, enacted, almost unconsciously, a little scene of
parting. The look of suffering upon the mirrored face slowly altered; in
its place came one still sorrowful, but tempered with sweet indulgence.
He stretched out his hand, as if he set it upon a head at about the
height of his shoulder.
“Yes, it may mean--it may mean forever!” he said in a low, tremulous
voice. “Little girl, we MUST be brave!”
And the while his eyes gazed into the mirror, they became expressive
of a momentary pleased surprise, as if, even in the arts of sorrow, he
found himself doing better than he knew. But his sorrow was none the
less genuine because of that.
Then he noticed the ink upon his forehead, and went away to wash. When
he returned he did an unusual thing--he brushed his coat thoroughly,
removing it for this special purpose. After that, he earnestly combed
and brushed his hair, and retied his tie. Next, he took from a drawer
two clean handkerchiefs. He placed one in his breast pocket, part of the
colored border of the handkerchief being left on exhibition, and with
the other he carefully wiped his shoes. Finally, he sawed it back and
forth across them, and, with a sigh, languidly dropped it upon the
floor, where it remained.
Returning to the mirror, he again brushed his hair--he went so far, this
time, as to brush his eyebrows, which seemed not much altered by the
operation. Suddenly, he was deeply affected by something seen in the
glass.
“By George!” he exclaimed aloud.
Seizing a small hand-mirror, he placed it in juxtaposition to his right
eye, and closely studied his left profile as exhibited in the larger
mirror. Then he examined his right profile, subjecting it to a like
scrutiny emotional, yet attentive and prolonged.
“By George!” he exclaimed, again. “By George!”
He had made a discovery. There was a downy shadow upon his upper lip.
What he had just found out was that this down could be seen projecting
beyond the line of his lip, like a tiny nimbus. It could be seen in
PROFILE.
“By GEORGE!” William exclaimed.
He was still occupied with the two mirrors when his mother again tapped
softly upon his door, rousing him as from a dream (brief but engaging)
to the heavy realities of that day.
“What you want now?”
“I won't come in,” said Mrs. Baxter. “I just came to see.”
“See what?”
“I wondered--I thought perhaps you needed something. I knew your watch
was out of order--”
“F'r 'evan's sake what if it is?”
She offered a murmur of placative laughter as her apology, and said:
“Well, I just thought I'd tell you--because if you did intend going to
the station, I thought you probably wouldn't want to miss it and get
there too late. I've got your hat here all nicely brushed for you. It's
nearly twenty minutes of one, Willie.”
“WHAT?”
“Yes, it is. It's--”
She had no further speech with him.
Breathless, William flung open his door, seized the hat, racketed down
the stairs, and out through the front door, which he left open behind
him. Eight seconds later he returned at a gallop, hurtled up the stairs
and into his room, emerging instantly with something concealed under his
coat. Replying incoherently to his mother's inquiries, he fell down the
stairs as far as the landing, used the impetus thus given as a help to
greater speed for the rest of the descent--and passed out of hearing.
Mrs. Baxter sighed, and went to a window in her own room, and looked
out.
William was already more than half-way to the next corner, where there
was a car-line that ran to the station; but the distance was not too
great for Mrs. Baxter to comprehend the nature of the symmetrical white
parcel now carried in his right hand. Her face became pensive as she
gazed after the flying slender figure:--there came to her mind the
recollection of a seventeen-year-old boy who had brought a box of candy
(a small one, like William's) to the station, once, long ago, when she
had been visiting in another town. For just a moment she thought of that
boy she had known, so many years ago, and a smile came vaguely upon her
lips. She wondered what kind of a woman he had married, and how many
children he had--and whether he was a widower----
The fleeting recollection passed; she turned from the window and shook
her head, puzzled.
“Now where on earth could Jane and that little Kirsted girl have gone?”
she murmured.
... At the station, William, descending from the street-car, found
that he had six minutes to spare. Reassured of so much by the great
clock in the station tower, he entered the building, and, with calm
and dignified steps, crossed the large waiting-room. Those calm
and dignified steps were taken by feet which little betrayed the
tremulousness of the knees above them. Moreover, though William's
face was red, his expression--cold, and concentrated upon high
matters--scorned the stranger, and warned the lower classes that the
mission of this bit of gentry was not to them.
With but one sweeping and repellent glance over the canaille present,
he made sure that the person he sought was not in the waiting-room.
Therefore, he turned to the doors which gave admission to the tracks,
but before he went out he paused for an instant of displeasure. Hard by
the doors stood a telephone-booth, and from inside this booth a little
girl of nine or ten was peering eagerly out at William, her eyes just
above the lower level of the glass window in the door.
Even a prospect thus curtailed revealed her as a smudged and dusty
little girl; and, evidently, her mother must have been preoccupied with
some important affair that day; but to William she suggested nothing
familiar. As his glance happened to encounter hers, the peering
eyes grew instantly brighter with excitement;--she exposed her whole
countenance at the window, and impulsively made a face at him.
William had not the slightest recollection of ever having seen her
before.
He gave her one stern look and went on; though he felt that something
ought to be done. The affair was not a personal one--patently, this was
a child who played about the station and amused herself by making faces
at everybody who passed the telephone-booth--still, the authorities
ought not to allow it. People did not come to the station to be
insulted.
Three seconds later the dusty-faced little girl and her moue were sped
utterly from William's mind. For, as the doors swung together behind
him, he saw Miss Pratt. There were no gates nor iron barriers to obscure
the view; there was no train-shed to darken the air. She was at
some distance, perhaps two hundred feet, along the tracks, where
the sleeping-cars of the long train would stop. But there she stood,
mistakable for no other on this wide earth!
There she stood--a glowing little figure in the hazy September sunlight,
her hair an amber mist under the adorable little hat; a small bunch
of violets at her waist; a larger bunch of fragrant but less expensive
sweet peas in her right hand; half a dozen pink roses in her left; her
little dog Flopit in the crook of one arm; and a one-pound box of candy
in the crook of the other--ineffable, radiant, starry, there she stood!
Near her also stood her young hostess, and Wallace Banks, Johnnie
Watson, and Joe Bullitt--three young gentlemen in a condition of
solemn tensity. Miss Parcher saw William as he emerged from the
station building, and she waved her parasol in greeting, attracting the
attention of the others to him, so that they: all turned and stared.
Seventeen sometimes finds it embarrassing (even in a state of deep
emotion) to walk two hundred feet, or thereabout, toward a group of
people who steadfastly watch the long approach. And when the watching
group contains the lady of all the world before whom one wishes to
appear most debonair, and contains not only her, but several rivals,
who, though FAIRLY good-hearted, might hardly be trusted to neglect such
an opportunity to murmur something jocular about one--No, it cannot be
said that William appeared to be wholly without self-consciousness.
In fancy he had prophesied for this moment something utterly different.
He had seen himself parting from her, the two alone as within a cloud.
He had seen himself gently placing his box of candy in her hands, some
of his fingers just touching some of hers and remaining thus lightly in
contact to the very last. He had seen himself bending toward the sweet
blonde head to murmur the few last words of simple eloquence, while
her eyes lifted in mysterious appeal to his--and he had put no other
figures, not even Miss Parcher's, into this picture.
Parting is the most dramatic moment in young love, and if there is one
time when the lover wishes to present a lofty but graceful appearance it
is at the last. To leave with the loved one, for recollection, a final
picture of manly dignity in sorrow--that, above all things, is
the lover's desire. And yet, even at the beginning of William's
two-hundred-foot advance (later so much discussed) he felt the heat
surging over his ears, and, as he took off his hat, thinking to wave it
jauntily in reply to Miss Parcher, he made but an uncertain gesture of
it, so that he wished he had not tried it. Moreover, he had covered less
than a third of the distance, when he became aware that all of the
group were staring at him with unaccountable eagerness, and had begun to
laugh.