POLKTOWN’S NEW AWAKENING
Yes, this was Annette Bowman, to whose coming to Polktown Janice had
looked forward with such pleased expectancy. Now she was very sorry
she even knew Frank, for she did not see how she could escape being
introduced to his sister.
There were, however, a few days of grace. It was mid-week when Annette
came to the Lake View Inn and Frank could not very well bring her up to
the Day house before Saturday afternoon.
Janice shrank from contemplating the awkwardness bound to arise out of
her meeting with the civil engineer’s sister. Frank might be a very
“civil” engineer indeed; but Annette, as Janice well knew, was woefully
lacking in that element of her brother’s character. When Janice and
Annette met, the latter could not fail to recognize the former as
the person who had driven the automobile when Judge Slater’s cob was
frightened on the Middletown Lower Road. And then what?
“There will be an explosion,” sighed Janice. “I would give a good deal
if Auntie and I had not gone to Middletown that day.”
Meanwhile Annette was not idle. She made her presence felt in Polktown
from the beginning. Her first parade up the hill to Massey’s drug
store for the purchasing of a new toothbrush and some face powder
was conducted in a manner to strike Polktown--even the feminine
section--with awe. A musical comedy queen, right off the stage, could
have been no more gaily appareled than Annette Bowman. Moreover, her
eyebrows were heavily penciled, her lips rouged, her cheeks tinted and
her nose powdered so thickly that the contrast between cheeks and nose
was startling.
She wore a dress of pale green, the over-gown of some sheer material,
while the actual frock itself clung as closely to her slight figure
as a glove, and was slit up in front half way to her knees. She wore
dancing slippers with high heels, and as she walked one could glimpse
embroidered silk stockings.
Walky Dexter, who saw her as he was driving down to the boat dock,
afterward vowed that Josephus was more startled by the sight than he
had been by the apparition of Janice Day’s new car.
“I snum!” exclaimed Walky; “she looked like one o’ them green
hoppergrasses ye see in a ryefield--a standin’ on its hind laigs
an’ teeterin’ along like our old Ponto when he tries ter beg for a
dog-biscuit. Nor I never did see nothin’ jest like that parasol before,
neither--all lace and do-funnies. Wouldn’t keep the sun off’n a blind
worm in a mole-tunnel, that wouldn’t! Jest as soon hev a colander on a
stick.”
Whereas Walky was critical and some of the other male observers
inclined to laugh at Miss Annette Bowman, the female portion of
Polktown’s inhabitants was soon divided into two camps--one openly
admiring the stylish young lady, the other speaking harshly of her; but
both in their hearts wishing they could view her wonderful costumes
more closely.
In the afternoon Annette went for another stroll, arrayed from head
to toe in an entirely different creation of a fashionable New York
costumer. Behind the cover of the window blinds the ladies of High
Street took note of Miss Bowman’s fashion-plate figure.
Venturing into Massey’s once more, the proprietor, on the strength of
having served her in the morning, introduced a couple of the older
girls to the new arrival in Polktown. Annette was very gracious--nobody
could be more so when she cared to make a good impression--and she
quite charmed Elvira Snow and Mabel Woods. All three strolled up the
shadiest side of High Street. Elvira and Mabel were the sort of girls
who read romantic novels, consider a boy’s attentions a subject to be
whispered about, and who preen before a mirror when they make ready
for an appearance in public. Elvira desired her friends to call her
“’Vira,” while Mabel Woods had long written her name “Maybelle.”
They were envied by the other girls they met that day because they were
first to become acquainted with the new guest at the Lake View Inn.
There was to be a small party at Major Price’s house that evening, and
when, in the peregrinations of the trio, they came past the Major’s
fine old mansion and spacious lawn, Maggie Price was introduced to the
city girl. No matter what was put on poor Maggie, she always would
look dowdy; and yet in her soul the Major’s daughter worshipped at the
shrine of Fashion.
She was enamored of Annette instantly. Elvira and Mabel made themselves
friends for life of Maggie Price by tolling the brilliant bird of
passage to the Price gate.
“Do come up to-night, Miss Bowman--and bring your brother, of course.
It’s quite informal. Pa is acquainted with Mr. Bowman; I’m not and I’m
just dying to meet him. But he hasn’t had much time since he’s been in
Polktown for anybody or anything but Janice Day and her new automobile.
I’m just dying to have a car myself; but pa won’t hear to it. He says
he doesn’t want anything in the stable that he can’t stop by saying
‘Whoa!’ You will come? That’s so nice. You’ll come, too, now--’Vira
and Maybelle--won’t you? Well, now, do!”
To be invited to the Price house was to enter the Golden Gate of
Polktown society. Annette dragged Frank off to the dull reception after
his hard day’s work; but the young civil engineer attended her with
little complaint. He really loved his sister, and Annette showed him
the most lovable side of her character.
Some of the young traveling men--drummers Polktown people called
them--had actually stayed over their usual time at the Inn because of
Annette’s appearance at the general table. But the presence of Frank
and the stern oversight of good Mrs. Parraday guarded the foolish
Annette from any unpleasant consequences of her gay appearance.
“That gal,” the innkeeper’s wife confessed to her neighbor, “ain’t no
more responsible than a butterfly--and she flits about jest as perky
an’ unsuspicious. Her brother left her in my care when he’s off to his
work daytimes, and any of them drummers that try to git fermiliar with
the foolish gal is goin’ to git a broadside from Ma’am Parraday that
they won’t forgit!”
Annette went to Major Price’s arrayed in a party gown such as never had
been seen in Polktown before. Frank, who knew a little something about
the village standards, made his sister wear some lacy stuff tucked into
the upper part of the frock.
“Talk about the lilies of the field bein’ dressy,” drawled Marty, who
had chanced to observe Frank and his sister as they left the hotel for
the party, and came home to tell about it, “they ain’t got nothin’ on
Annette Bowman, believe me! I expect Frank’s used to seeing girls in
New York dressed like that; but, crackey, Janice! if you was to put on
clo’es like she wears I’d be ashamed to walk out to the cow-barn with
ye.”
“Why, Marty!” laughed Janice. “She can’t be dressed as badly as all
that.”
“I’d love to see that dress,” his mother said, with a sigh. “It must be
lovely!”
“_Lovely_--huh!” snorted Marty, in deep disdain.
Annette and her frocks were the main topics of conversation that week
in Polktown. Interest in the new railroad waned and Janice’s automobile
was likewise relegated to the background. After the Prices’ party Mrs.
Hutchins and the other dressmakers of the town were immediately rushed
with work. Mr. Massey, who kept a side line of books and periodicals,
sold out his latest pattern magazines almost at once. A furore of
frock-making took hold upon the mothers of the town.
It was mostly the girls of about Annette’s age who began this aping
of the ultra-fashions; but the disease spread until many of the staid
matrons of the town were refurbishing their summer frocks, or having
new ones made more in accord with the pictures in Aunt ’Mira’s story
papers.
It was a bit of male gossip that Mr. John-Ed. Hutchins was scarcely
seen out of the house for the next fortnight. It was a long-established
fiction that Mr. John-Ed. was “weakly” and could not work. At least, he
never did work--much; but he was not too weak to pull basting threads,
and when his wife was “driv with work,” in Polktown parlance, she kept
her otherwise useless spouse busy at this end of the dressmaking art.
Mrs. Hutchins admitted that she hadn’t been so busy before in years.
Miss Link, the plump, little, near-sighted milliner, who always seemed
to be lurking like a bespectacled spider behind her half blind on High
Street, got near enough to Annette during the first few days of her
stay at the Inn to copy one or two of the city girl’s hats, and she put
them in a prominent position in her show window for “bait.” Harlan, the
shoeman, immediately got in a stock of pumps and spats, and Icivilly
Sprague bought the first pair of the latter ever sold in Polktown.
Icivilly’s brother, Sam, had a remarkably long neck, and he was
addicted to attacks of quinsy sore throat at all times of the year. The
unfortunate Sam had a bad attack the very night his sister brought home
the spats, and Mrs. Sprague strapped a warm poultice on Sam’s long
neck with one of the spats.
“There!” said the indignant lady, who had forbidden her daughter’s
wearing the things the instant she saw them. “There! them do-funnies is
good for suthin’, I vum! They jest fit Sam’s throat, an’ mebbe he’ll
git some wear out o’ them.”
Janice kept out of the way of Frank Bowman’s sister until Saturday
afternoon. Even then she planned to escape by taking Marty for a drive
into the country in reward for his sticking all the week to his job.
“I gotter see Frank before we start,” the boy said. “Or--can’t we drive
down by the _ho_-tel? I won’t stop but a minute. And say, Janice! Nelse
Haley’s back. Did you know it?”
Janice was fortunately examining the “innards,” as Uncle Jason called
it, of the automobile, and could hide her face from Marty. “No; I had
not heard of his return,” she said. “I guess this is all right. Anyway,
we’ll start.”
She could not see how she was to escape going to the Inn with Marty;
and then, she suddenly hoped, by driving through the main street of the
town they might see Nelson. Perhaps he would go with them in the car.
She did not give much attention to Marty’s chatter until the boy said:
“You’ve sure made a hit with Frank Bowman, Janice. He was saying last
night he wished that sister of his was more like you. She acts like
she ain’t got right good sense, from all I hear tell.”
“You mustn’t say that, Marty,” Janice admonished him.
“Huh! why not? It’s true enough. I bet Frank wishes she had half your
sense. For a girl, Janice, you are pretty nice,” added this candid
youth. “There! if that ain’t her now--an’ all dressed up like a hoss in
a circus parade.”
The car had swung into High Street and was descending the hill. The
Lake View Inn with its pleasant piazzas was in sight. Janice saw the
bird of brilliant plumage in a prominent position overlooking the
street. And by her side, sitting very close to her and listening to
Annette’s vivacious chatter, was Nelson Haley, the young schoolmaster!