TED SEIZES THE DAY
The next morning Ted strolled into his uncle's office to ask if the
latter had any objections to his accepting an invitation to a house-party
from Hal Underwood, a college classmate, at the latter's home near
Springfield.
The doctor considered a moment before answering. He knew all about the
Underwoods and knew that his erratic nephew could not be in a safer,
pleasanter place. Also his quick wit saw a chance to put the screws on
the lad in connection with the tutoring business.
"I suppose your June allowance is able to float your traveling expenses,"
he remarked less guilelessly than the remark sounded.
The June allowance was, it seemed, the missing link.
"I thought maybe you would be willing to allow me a little extra this
month on account of commencement stunts. It is darned expensive sending
nosegays to sweet girl graduates. I couldn't help going broke. Honest I
couldn't, Uncle Phil." Then as his uncle did not leap at the suggestion
offered, the speaker changed his tack. "Anyway, you would be willing to
let me have my July money ahead of time, wouldn't you?" he ingratiated.
"It is only ten days to the first."
But Doctor Holiday still chose to be inconveniently irrelevant.
"Have you any idea how much my bill was for repairing the car?" he
asked.
Ted shook his head shamefacedly, and bent to examine a picture in a
magazine which lay on the desk. He wasn't anxious to have the car
incident resurrected. He had thought it decently buried by this time,
having heard no more about it.
"It was a little over a hundred dollars," continued the doctor.
The boy looked up, genuinely distressed.
"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's highway robbery."
"Scarcely. All things considered, it was a very fair bill. A hundred
dollars is a good deal to pay for the pleasure of nearly getting yourself
and somebody else killed, Ted."
Ted pulled his forelock and had nothing to say.
"Were you in earnest about paying up for that particular bit of
folly, son?"
"Why, yes. At least I didn't think it would be any such sum as that," Ted
hedged. "I'll be swamped if I try to pay it out of my allowance. I can't
come out even, as it is. Couldn't you take it out of my own money--what's
coming to me when I'm of age?"
"I could, if getting myself paid were the chief consideration. As it
happens, it isn't. I'm sorry if I seem to be hard on you, but I am going
to hold you to your promise, even if it pinches a bit. I think you know
why. How about it, son?"
"I suppose it has to go that way if you say so," said Ted a little
sulkily. "Can I pay it in small amounts?"
"How small? Dollar a year? I'd hate to wait until I was a hundred and
forty or so to get my money back."
The boy grinned reluctantly, answering the friendly twinkle in his
uncle's eyes. He was relieved that a joke had penetrated what had begun
to appear to be an unpleasantly jestless interview. He hated to be
called to account. Like many another older sinner he liked dancing, but
found paying the piper an irksome business.
"Nonsense, Uncle Phil! I meant real paying. Will ten dollars a month do?"
"It will, provided you don't try to borrow ahead each month from the
next one."
"I won't," glibly. "If you will--" The boy broke off and had the grace to
look confused, realizing he had been about to do the very thing he had
promised in the same breath not to do. "Then that means I can't go to
Hal's," he added soberly.
He felt sober. There was more than Hal and the house-party involved,
though the latter had fallen in peculiarly fortuitous with his other
plans. He had rashly written Madeline he would be in Holyoke next week as
she desired, and the first of July and his allowance would still be just
out of reach next week. It was a confounded nuisance, to say the least,
being broke just now, with Uncle Phil turned stuffy.
"No, I don't want you to give up your house-party, though that rests with
you. I'll make a bargain with you. I'll advance your whole July allowance
minus ten dollars Saturday morning."
Ted's face cleared, beamed like sudden sunshine on a cloudy March day.
"You will! Uncle Phil, you certainly are a peach!" And in his exuberance
he tossed his cap to the ceiling, catching it deftly on his nose as it
descended.
"Hold on. Don't rejoice too soon. It was to be a bargain, you know. You
have heard only one side."
"Oh--h!" The exclamation was slightly crestfallen.
"I understand that you fell down on most of your college work this
spring. Is that correct?"
This was a new complication and just as he had thought he was safely
out of the woods, too. Ted hung his head, gave consent to his uncle's
question by silence and braced himself for a lecture, though he was a
little relieved that he need not bring up the subject of that
inconvenient flunking of his, himself; that his uncle was already
prepared, whoever it was that had told tales. The lecture did not
come, however.
"Here is the bargain. I will advance the money as I said, provided
that as soon as you get back from Hal's you will make arrangements to
tutor with Mr. Caldwell this summer, in all the subjects you failed in
and promise to put in two months of good, solid cramming, no half way
about it."
"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's vacation."
"You don't need a vacation. If all I hear of you is true, or even half of
it, you made your whole college year one grand, sweet vacation. What is
the answer? Want time to think the proposition over?"
"No--o. I guess I'll take you up. I suppose I'll have to tutor anyway if
I don't want to drop back a class, and I sure don't," Ted admitted
honestly. "Unless you'll let me quit and you won't. It is awfully tough,
though. You never made Tony or Larry kill themselves studying in
vacations. I don't see--"
"Neither Tony or Larry ever flunked a college course. It remained for you
to be the first Holiday to wear a dunce cap."
Ted flushed angrily at that. The shot went home, as the doctor intended
it should. He knew when to hit and how to do it hard, as Larry had
testified.
"Fool's cap if you like, Uncle Phil. I am not a dunce."
"I rather think that is true. Anyway, prove it to us this summer and
there is no one who will be gladder than I to take back the aspersion. Is
it understood then? You have your house-party and when you come back you
are pledged to honest work, no shirking, no requests for time off, no
complaints. Have I your word?"
Ted considered. He thought he was paying a stiff price for his
house-party and his lark with Madeline. He could give up the first,
though a fellow always had a topping time at Hal's; but he couldn't quite
see himself owning ignominiously to Madeline that he couldn't keep his
promise to her because of empty pockets. Moreover, as he had admitted, he
would have to tutor anyway, probably, and he might as well get some gain
out of the pain.
"I promise, Uncle Phil."
"Good. Then that is settled. I am not going to say anything more about
the flunking. You know how we all feel about it. I think you have sense
enough and conscience enough to see it about the way the rest of us do."
Ted's eyes were down again now. Somehow Uncle Phil always made him feel
worse by what he didn't say than a million sermons from other people
would have done. He would have gladly have given up the projected journey
and anything else he possessed this moment if he could have had a clean
slate to show. But it was too late for that now. He had to take the
consequences of his own folly.
"I see it all right, Uncle Phil," he said looking up. "Trouble is I never
seem to have the sense to look until--afterward. You are awfully decent
about it and letting me go to Hal's and--everything. I--I'll be gone
about a week, do you mind?"
"No. Stay as long as you like. I am satisfied with your promise to make
good when you do come."
Ted slipped away quickly then. He was ashamed to meet his uncle's kind
eyes. He knew he was playing a crooked game with stacked cards. He hadn't
exactly lied--hadn't said a word that wasn't strictly true, indeed. He
was going to Hal's, but he had let his uncle think he was going to stay
there the whole week whereas in reality he meant to spend the greater
part of the time in Madeline Taylor's society, which was not in the
bargain at all. Well he would make up later by keeping his promise about
the studying. He would show them Larry wasn't the only Holiday who could
make good. The dunce cap jibe rankled.
And so, having satisfied his sufficiently elastic conscience, he departed
on Saturday for Springfield and adjacent points.
He had the usual "topping" time at Hal's and tore himself away with the
utmost reluctance from the house-party, had half a mind, indeed, to wire
Madeline he couldn't come to Holyoke. But after all that seemed rather a
mean thing to do after having treated her so rough before, and in the end
he had gone, only one day later than he had promised.
It was characteristic that, arrived at his destination, he straightway
forgot the pleasures he was foregoing at Hal's and plunged
whole-heartedly into amusing himself to the utmost with Madeline Taylor.
_Carpe Diem_ was Ted Holiday's motto.
Madeline had indeed proved unexpectedly pretty and attractive when she
opened the door to him on Cousin Emma's little box of a front porch, clad
all in white and wearing no extraneous ornament of any sort, blushing
delightfully and obviously more than glad of his coming. He would not
have been Ted Holiday if he hadn't risen to the occasion. The last girl
in sight was usually the only girl for him so long as she _was_ in sight
and sufficiently jolly and good to look upon.
A little later Madeline donned a trim tailored black sailor hat and a
pretty and becoming pale green sweater and the two went down the steps
together, bound for an excursion to the park. As they descended Ted's
hand slipped gallantly under the girl's elbow and she leaned on it ever
so little, reveling in the ceremony and prolonging it as much as
possible. Well she knew that Cousin Emma and the children were peering
out from behind the curtains of the front bedroom upstairs, and that Mrs.
Bascom and her stuck up daughter Lily had their faces glued to the pane
next door. They would all see that this was no ordinary beau, but a real
swell like the magnificent young men in the movies. Perhaps as she
descended Cousin Emma's steps and went down the path between the tiger
lilies and peonies that flanked the graveled path with Ted Holiday beside
her, Madeline Taylor had her one perfect moment.
Only the "ordinary" Fred, on hearing his wife's voluble descriptions
later of Madeline's "grand" young man failed to be suitably impressed.
"Them swells don't mean no girl no good no time," he had summed up his
views with sententious accumulation of negatives.
But little enough did either Ted or Madeline reck of Fred's or any other
opinion as they fared their blithe and care-free way that gala week. The
rest of the world was supremely unimportant as they went canoeing and
motoring and trolley riding and mountain climbing and "movieing"
together. Madeline strove with all her might to dress and act and _be_ as
nearly like those other girls after whom she was modeling herself as
possible, to do nothing, which could jar on Ted in any way or remind him
that she was "different." In her happiness and sincere desire to please
she succeeded remarkably well in making herself superficially at least
very much like Ted's own "kind of girl" and though with true masculine
obtuseness he was entirely unaware of the conscious effort she was
putting into the performance nevertheless he enjoyed the results in full
and played up to her undeniable charms with his usual debonair and
heedless grace and gallantry.
The one thing that had been left out of the program for lack of suitable
opportunity was dancing, an omission not to be tolerated by two strenuous
and modern young persons who would rather fox trot than eat any day.
Accordingly on Thursday it was agreed that they should repair to the
White Swan, a resort down the river, famous for its excellent cuisine,
its perfect dance floor and its "snappy" negro orchestra. Both Ted and
Madeline knew that the Swan had also a reputation of another less
desirable sort, but both were willing to ignore the fact for the sake of
enjoying the "jolliest jazz on the river" as the advertisement read. The
dance was the thing.
It was, indeed. The evening was decidedly the best yet, as both averred,
pirouetting and spinning and romping through one fox trot and one step
after another. The excitement of the music, the general air of
exhilaration about the place and their own high-pitched mood made the
occasion different from the other gaieties of the week, merrier, madder,
a little more reckless.
Once, seeing a painted, over-dressed or rather under-dressed, girl in the
arms of a pasty-faced, protruding-eyed roué, both obviously under the
spell of too much liquid inspiration, Ted suffered a momentary revulsion
and qualm of conscience. He shouldn't have brought Madeline here. It
wasn't the sort of place to bring a girl, no matter how good the music
was. Oh, well! What did it matter just this once? They were there now and
they might as well get all the fun they could out of it. The music
started up, he held out his hand to Madeline and they wheeled into the
maze of dancers, the girl's pliant body yielding to his arms, her eyes
brilliant with excitement. They danced on and on and it was amazingly and
imprudently late when they finally left the Swan and went home to Cousin
Emma's house.
Ted had meant to leave Madeline at the gate, but somehow he lingered and
followed the girl out into the yard behind the house where they seated
themselves in the hammock in the shade of the lilac bushes. And suddenly,
without any warning, he had her in his arms and was kissing her
tempestuously.
It was only for a moment, however. He pulled himself together, hot
cheeked and ashamed and flung himself out of the hammock. Madeline sat
very still, not saying a word, as she watched him march to and fro
between the beds of verbena and love-lies-bleeding and portulaca.
Presently he paused beside the hammock, looking down at the girl.
"I am going home to-morrow," he said a little huskily.
Madeline threw out one hand and clutched one of the boy's in a
feverish clasp.
"No! No!" she cried. "You mustn't go. Please don't, Ted."
"I've got to," stolidly.
"Why?"
"You know why."
"You mean--what you did--just now?"
He nodded miserably.
"That doesn't matter. I'm not angry. I--I liked it."
"I am afraid it does matter. It makes a mess of everything, and it's all
my fault. I spoiled things. I've got to go."
"But you will come back?" she pleaded.
He shook his head.
"It is better not, Madeline. I'm sorry."
She snatched her hand away from his, her eyes shooting sparks of anger.
"I hate you, Ted Holiday. You make me care and then you go away and leave
me. You are cruel--selfish. I hate you--hate you."
Ted stared down at her, helpless, miserable, ashamed. No man knows what
to do with a scene, especially one which his own folly has precipitated.
"Willis Hubbard is coming down to-morrow night and if you don't stay as
you promised I'll go to the Swan with him. He has been teasing me to go
for ages and I wouldn't, but I will now, if you leave me. I'll--I'll do
anything."
Ted was worried. He did not like the sound of the girl's threats though
he wasn't moved from his own purpose.
"Don't go to the Swan with Hubbard, Madeline. You mustn't."
"Why not? You took me."
"I know I did, but that is different," he finished lamely.
"I don't see anything very different," she retorted hotly.
Ted bit his lip. Remembering his own recent aberration, he did not see as
much difference as he would have liked to see himself.
"I suppose you wouldn't have taken _your_ kind of girl to the Swan,"
taunted Madeline.
"No, I--"
It was a fatal admission. Ted hadn't meant to make it so bluntly, but it
was out. The damage was done.
A demon of rage possessed the girl. Beside herself with anger she sprang
to her feet and delivered a stinging blow straight in the boy's face.
Then, her mood changing, she fell back into the hammock sobbing bitterly.
For a moment Ted was too much astonished by this fish-wife exhibition
of temper even to be angry with himself. Then a hot wave of wrath and
shame surged over him. He put up his hand to his cheek as if to brush
away the indignity of the blow. But he was honest enough to realize
that maybe he had deserved the punishment, though not for the reason
the girl had dealt it.
Looking down at her in her racked misery, his resentment vanished and
an odd impersonal kind of pity for her possessed him instead, though
her attraction was gone forever. He could see the scar on her forehead,
and it troubled and reproached him vaguely, seemed a symbol of a deeper
wound he had dealt her, though never meaning any harm. He bent over
her, gently.
"Forgive me, Madeline," he said. "I am sorry--sorry for
everything. Goodby."
In a moment he was gone, past the portulaca and love-lies-bleeding, past
Cousin Emma's unlit parlor windows, down the walk between the tiger
lilies and peonies, out into the street. And Madeline, suddenly
realizing that she was alone, rushed after him, calling his name softly
into the dark. But only the echo of his firm, buoyant young feet came
back to her straining ears. She fled back to the garden and, throwing
herself, face down, on the dew drenched grass, surrendered to a passion
of tearless grief.
Ted astonished his uncle, first by coming home a whole day earlier than
he had been expected and second, by announcing his intention of seeing
Robert Caldwell and making arrangements about the tutoring that very
day. He was more than usually uncommunicative about his house-party
experiences the Doctor thought and fancied too that just at first after
his return the boy did not meet his eyes quite frankly. But this soon
passed away and he was delighted and it must be confessed considerably
astounded too to perceive that Ted really meant to keep his word about
the studying and settled down to genuine hard work for perhaps the first
time, in his idle, irresponsible young life. He had been prepared to put
on the screws if necessary. There had been no need. Ted had applied his
own screws and kept at his uncongenial task with such grim determination
that it almost alarmed his family, so contrary was his conduct to his
usual light-hearted shedding of all obligations which he could, by hook
or crook, evade.
Among other things to be noted with relief the doctor counted the fact
that there were no more letters from Florence. Apparently that flame
which had blazed up rather brightly at first had died down as a good many
others had. Doctor Holiday was particularly glad in this case. He had not
liked the idea of his nephew's running around with a girl who would be
willing to go "joy-riding" with him after midnight, and still less had he
liked the idea of his nephew's issuing such invitations to any kind of
girl. Youth was youth and he had never kept a very tight rein on any of
Ned's children, believing he could trust them to run straight in the
main. Still there were things one drew the line at for a Holiday.