IN WHICH PHIL GETS HIS EYES OPENED
At home on her Hill Tony Holiday settled down more or less happily after
her eventful sally into the great world. To the careless observer she was
quite the same Tony who went down the Hill a few weeks earlier. If at
times she was unusually quiet, had spells of sitting very still with
folded hands and far away dreams in her eyes, if she crept away by
herself to read the long letters that came so often, from many addresses
but always in the same bold, beautiful script and to pen long answers to
these; if she read more poetry than was her wont and sang love songs with
a new, exquisite, but rather heart breaking timbre in her lovely
contralto voice, no one paid much attention to these signs except
possibly Doctor Philip who saw most things. He perceived regretfully that
his little girl was slipping away from him, passing through some
experience that was by no means all joy or contentment and which was
making her grow up all too fast. But he said nothing, quietly bided the
hour of confidence which he felt sure would come sooner or later.
Tony puzzled much over the complexities of life these days, puzzled over
other things beside her own perverse romance. Carlotta too was much on
her mind. She wished she could wave a magic wand and make things come
right for these two friends of hers who were evidently made for each
other as Hal had propounded. She wondered if Phil were as unhappy as
Carlotta was and meant to find out in her own time and way.
She had seen almost nothing of him since her return to the Hill. He was
working very hard in the store and never appeared at any of the little
dances and picnics and teas with which the Dunbury younger set passed
away the summer days and nights, and which Ted and the twins and usually
Tony herself frequented. Larry never did. He hated things of that sort.
But Phil was different. He had always liked fun and parties and had
always been on hand and in great demand hitherto at every social function
from a Ladies' Aid strawberry festival to a grand Masonic ball. It wasn't
natural for Phil to shut himself out of things like that. It was a bad
sign Tony thought.
At any rate she determined to find out for herself how the land lay if
she could. Having occasion to do some shopping she marched down the Hill
and presented herself at Stuart Lambert and Son's, demanding to be served
by no less a person than Philip himself.
"I want a pair of black satin pumps with very frivolous heels," she
announced. "Produce them this instant, slave." She smiled at Phil and he
smiled back. He and Tony had always been the best of chums.
"Cannzy ones?" he laughed. "That's what one of our customers calls them."
And while he knelt before her with an array of shoe boxes around him,
fitting a dainty slipper on Tony's pretty foot, Tony herself looked not
at the slipper but at Philip, studying his face shrewdly. He looked
older, graver. There was less laughter in his blue eyes, a grimmer line
about his young mouth. Poor Phil! Evidently Carlotta wasn't the only one
who was paying the price of too much loving. Tony made up her mind to
rush in, though she knew it might be a case for angel hesitation.
"I've never given you a message Hal Underwood sent you," she observed
irrelevantly.
Philip looked up surprised.
"Hal Underwood! What message did he send me? I hardly know him."
"He seemed to know you rather well. He told me to tell you to come down
and marry Carlotta, that you were the only man that could keep her in
order. That is too big, Phil. Try a smaller one." The speaker kicked off
the offending slipper. Philip mechanically picked it up and replaced it
in the box.
"That is rather a queer message," he commented. "I had an idea Underwood
wanted to marry Carlotta himself. Try this." He reached for another pump.
His eyes were lowered so Tony could not see them. She wished she could.
"He does," she said. "She won't have him."
"Is--is there--anybody she is likely to have?" The words jerked out as
the young man groped for the shoe horn which was almost beside his hand
but which apparently he did not see at all.
"I am afraid she is likely to take Herbert Lathrop unless somebody
stops her by main force. Why don't you play Lochinvar yourself, Phil?
You could."
Philip looked straight up at Tony then, the slipper forgotten in his
hand.
"Tony, do you mean that?" he asked.
"I certainly do. Make her marry you, Phil. It is the only way with
Carlotta."
"I don't want to _make_ any girl marry me," he said.
"Oh, hang your silly pride, Phil Lambert! Carlotta wants to marry you I
tell you though she would murder me if she knew I did tell you."
"Maybe she does. But she doesn't want to live in Dunbury. I've good
reason to know that. We thrashed it out rather thoroughly on the top of
Mount Tom last June. She hasn't changed her mind."
Tony sighed. She was afraid Phil was right. Carlotta hadn't changed her
mind. Was it because she was afraid she might, that she was determining
to marry Herbert?
"And you can't leave Dunbury?" she asked soberly.
Just at that moment Stuart Lambert approached, a tall fine looking man,
with the same blue eyes and fresh coloring as his son and brown hair only
slightly graying around the temples. He had an air of vigor and ageless
youth. Indeed a stranger might easily have taken the two men for brothers
instead of father and son.
"Hello, Tony, my dear," he greeted cordially. "It is good to see you
round again. We have missed you. This boy of mine getting you what
you want?"
"He is trying," smiled Tony. "A woman doesn't always know what she wants,
Mr. Lambert. The store is wonderful since it was enlarged and I see lots
of other improvements too." Her eyes swept her surroundings with sincere
appreciation.
"Make your bow to Phil for all that. It is good to get fresh brains into
a business. We old fogies need jerking out of our ruts."
The older man's eyes fell upon Phil's bowed head and Tony realized how
much it meant to him to have his son with him at last, pulling shoulder
to shoulder.
"New brains nothing!" protested Phil. "Dad's got me skinned going and
coming for progressiveness. As for old fogies he's the youngest man I
know. Make all your bows to him, Tony. It is where they belong." And Phil
got to his feet and himself made a solemn obeisance in Stuart Lambert's
direction.
Mr. Lambert chuckled.
"Phil was always a blarney," he said. "Don't know where he got it.
Don't you believe a word he says, my dear." But Tony saw he was
immensely pleased with Phil's tribute for all that. "How do you like
the sign?" he asked.
"Fine. Looks good to me and I know it does to you, Mr. Lambert."
"Well, rather." The speaker rested his hand on Phil's shoulder a moment.
"I tell you it _is_ good, young lady, to have the son part added, worth
waiting for. I'm mighty proud of that sign. Between you and me, Miss
Tony, I'm proud of my son too."
"Who is blarneying now?" laughed Phil. "Go on with you, Dad. You are
spoiling my sale."
The father chuckled again and moved away. Phil looked down at the girl.
"I think your question is answered. I can't leave Dunbury," he said.
"Then Carlotta ought to come to you."
"There are no oughts in Carlotta's bright lexicon. I don't blame her,
Tony. Dunbury is a dead hole from most points of view. I am afraid she
wouldn't be happy here. You wouldn't be yourself forever. Bet you are
planning to get away right now."
Tony nodded ruefully.
"I suppose I am, Phil. The modern young woman isn't much to pin one's
faith to I am afraid. Do I get another slipper? Or is one enough?"
Phil came back from his mental aberration with a start and a grin at his
own expense.
"I am afraid I am not a very good salesman today," he apologized.
"Honestly I do better usually but you hit me in a vulnerable spot."
"You do care for Carlotta then?" probed Tony.
"Care! I'm crazy over her. I'd go on my hands and knees to Crest House if
I thought I could get her to marry me by doing it."
"You would much better go by train--the next one. That's my advice. Are
you coming to Sue Emerson's dance? That is why I am buying slippers. You
can dance with 'em if you'll come."
"Sorry. I don't go to dances any more."
"That is nonsense, Phil. It is the worst thing in the world for you to
make a hermit of yourself. No girl's worth it. Besides there are other
girls besides Carlotta."
Phil shook his head as he finished replacing Tony's trim brown oxfords.
"Unfortunately that isn't true for me," he said rising. "At present my
world consists of myself bounded, north, south, east and west by
Carlotta."
And Tony passing out under the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON a few
minutes later sighed a little. Here was Carlotta with a real man for the
taking and too stubborn and foolish to put out her hand and here was
herself, Tony Holiday, tying herself all up in a strange snarl for the
sake of somebody who wasn't a man at all as Holiday Hill standards ran.
What queer creatures women were!
Other people besides Tony were inclined to score Phil's folly in making a
hermit of himself. His sisters attacked him that very night on the
subject of Sue Emerson's dance and accused him of being a "Grumpy
Grandpa" and a grouch and various other uncomplimentary things when he
announced that he wasn't going to attend the function.
"I'm the authentic T.B.M.," he parried from his perch on the porch
railing. "I've cut out dancing."
"More idiot you!" retorted Charley promptly. "Mums, do tell Phil it is
all nonsense making such an oyster in a shell of himself."
Mrs. Lambert smiled and looked up at her tall young son, looked rather
hard for a moment.
"I think the twins are right, Phil," she said. "You are working too hard.
You don't allow yourself any relaxation."
"Oh, yes I do. Only my idea of relaxation doesn't happen to coincide with
the twins. Dancing in this sort of weather with your collar slumping and
the perspiration rolling in tidal waves down your manly brow doesn't
strike me as being a particularly desirable diversion."
"H-mp!" sniffed Charley. "You didn't object to dancing last summer when
it was twice as hot. You went to a dance almost every night when Carlotta
was visiting Tony. You know you did."
"I wasn't a member of the esteemed firm of Stuart Lambert and Son last
summer. A lily of the field can afford to dance all night. I'm a working
man I'd have you know."
"Well, I think you might come just this once to please us," joined in
Clare, the other twin. "You are a gorgeous dancer, Phil. I'd rather have
a one step with you than any man I know." Clare always beguiled where
Charley bullied, a method much more successful in the long run as Charley
sometimes grudgingly admitted after the fact.
Phil smiled now at pretty Clare and promised to think about it and the
twins flew off across the street to visit with Tony and Ruth whom the
whole Hill adored.
"Phil dear, aren't you happy?" asked Mrs. Lambert. "Have we asked too
much of you expecting you to settle down at home with us?"
"Why yes, Mums. I'm all right." Phil left his post on the rail and
dropped into a chair beside his mother. Perhaps he did it purposely lest
she see too much. "Don't get notions in your head. I like living in
Dunbury. I wouldn't live in a city for anything and I like being with Dad
not to mention the rest of you."
Mrs. Lambert shifted her position also. She wanted to see her son's face;
just as much as he didn't want her to see it.
"Possibly that is all so but you aren't happy for all that. You can't
fool mother eyes, my dear."
Phil looked straight at her then with a little rueful smile.
"I reckon I can't," he admitted. "Very well then. I am not entirely happy
but it is nobody's fault and nothing anybody can help."
"Philip, is it a girl?"
How they dread the _girl_ in their sons' lives--these mothers! The very
possibility of her in the abstract brings a shadow across the path.
"Yes, Mums, it is a girl."
Mrs. Lambert rose and went over to where her son sat, running her fingers
through his hair as she had been wont to do when the little boy Phil was
in trouble of any sort.
"I am very sorry, dear boy," she said. "It won't help to talk about it?"
"I am afraid not. Don't worry, Mums. It is just--well, it hurts a little
just now that's all."
She kissed his forehead and went back to her chair. It hurt her to
know her boy was being hurt, hurt her almost as much to know she could
not help him, she must just let him close the door on his grief and
bear it alone.
Yet she respected his reserve and loved him the better for it. Phil was
like that always. He never cried out when he was hurt. She remembered how
long ago the little boy Phil had come to her with a small finger just
released from a slamming door that had crushed it unmercifully, the
tears streaming down his cheeks but uttering no sound. She recalled
another incident of years later, when the coach had been obliged to put
some one else in Phil's place on the team the last minute because his
sprained ankle had been bothering. She and Stuart had come on for the
game. It had been a bitter disappointment to them all. To the boy it had
been little short of a tragedy. But he had smiled bravely at her in spite
of the trouble in his blue eyes. "Don't mind, Mums. It is all right," he
had said steadily. "We've got to win. We can't risk my darned ankle's
flopping. It's the bleachers for me. The game's the thing."
The game had always been the thing for Phil. Even in his blundering,
willful boyhood he had played hard and played fair and taken defeat like
a man when things had gone against him.
There was a moment's silence. Then Mrs. Lambert spoke again.
"Phil, I wish you would go to the dance with the girls. It will please
them and be good for you. You can't shut yourself away from everything
the way you are doing, if you are going to make Dunbury your home. Your
father never has. He has always given himself freely to it, worked with
it, played with it, made it a real part of himself. You mustn't start out
by building a wall around yourself."
"Am I doing that, Mums?" Phil's voice was sober.
"I am afraid you are, Phil. It troubles your father. He was so
disappointed when you wouldn't serve on the library committee. They were
disappointed too. They didn't expect it of your father's son."
"I--I wasn't interested."
"No, you weren't interested. That was the trouble. You ought to have
been. You have had your college training, the world of books has been
thrown wide open for you. You come back here and aren't interested in
seeing that others less fortunate get the right kind of books into their
hands and heads. I don't want to preach, dear. But education isn't only a
privilege. It is a responsibility."
"Maybe you are right, Mums. I didn't think of it that way. I just
didn't want to bother. I was--well, I was thinking too much about
myself I suppose."
"Youth is apt to. There were other things too. When they asked you to
take charge of the Fourth of July pageant, to dig up Dunbury's past
history and make it live for us again, your father and I both thought you
would enjoy it. He was tremendously excited about it, full of ideas to
help. But the project fell through because nobody would undertake the
leadership. You were too busy. Every one was too busy."
"But, Mums, I was busy," Phil defended himself. "It is no end of a job to
put things like that through properly."
"Most things worth doing are no end of a job. Your father would have
taken it with all the rest he has on his hands and made a success of it.
But he was hurt by your high handed refusal to have anything to do with
it and he let it go, though you know having Fourth of July community
celebrations is one of his dearest hobbies--always has been since he used
to fight so hard to get rid of the old, wretched noise, law breaking and
rowdyism kind of village celebration you and the other young Dunbury
vandals delighted in."
Phil flushed at that. The point went home. He remembered vividly his
boyish self tearing reluctantly from Doctor Holiday's fireworks impelled
by an unbearably guilty conscience to confess to Stuart Lambert that his
own son had been a transgressor against the law. Boy as he was, he had
gotten out of the interview with his father that night a glimpse into the
ideal citizenship which Stuart Lambert preached and lived and worked for.
He had understood a little then. He understood better now having stood
beside his father man to man.
"I am sorry, Mums. I would have done the thing if I'd known Dad wanted me
to. Why didn't he say so?"
Mrs. Lambert smiled.
"Dad doesn't say much about what he wants. You will have to learn to keep
your eyes open and find out for yourself. I did."
"Any more black marks on my score? I may as well eat the whole darned
pie at once." Phil's smile was humorous but his eyes were troubled. It
was a bit hard when you had been thinking you had played your part
fairly creditably to discover you had been fumbling your cues wretchedly
all along.
"Only one other thing. We were both immensely disappointed when you
wouldn't take the scout-mastership they offered you. Father believes
tremendously in the movement. He thinks it is going to be the making of
the next generation of men. He would have liked you to be a Scoutmaster
and when you wouldn't he went on the Scout Troop Committee himself though
he really could not spare the time."
"I see," said Phil. "I guess I've been pretty blind. Funny part of it is
I really wanted to take the Scoutmaster job but I thought Dad would think
it took too much of my time. Anything more?" he asked.
"Not a thing. Haven't you had quite enough of a lecture for once?" his
mother smiled back.
"I reckon I needed it. Thank you, Mums. I'll turn over a new leaf if it
isn't too late. I'll go to the dance and I'll ask them if there is still
a place for me on the library committee and I'll start a troop of Scouts
myself--another bunch I've had my eyes on for some time."
"That will please Dad very much. It pleases me too. Boys are very dear to
my heart. I wonder if you can guess why, Philip, my son?"
"I wish I'd been a better son, Mums. Some chaps never seem to cause
their-mothers any worry or heart ache. I wasn't that kind. I am afraid I
am not even yet."
"No son is, dear, unless there is something wrong with him or the mother.
Mothering means heart ache and worries, plus joy and pride and the joy
and pride more than makes up for the rest. It has for me a hundred times
over even when I had a rather bad little boy on my hands and now I have a
man--a man I am glad and proud to call my son."