CHERRY DISPOSES.
WE had had a merry lunch, we had watched the tests of the
draught cattle, we had all drunk pink lemonade and survived, and
now, by unanimous vote, we had decided to stay and have our
dinner in the “Mammoth Restaurant,” and go home by the light of
the golden hunter’s moon.
The wheel of fortune had been dismantled and the man who ran it
and the man who had been so lucky had gone off together. They
seemed to have struck up a friendship, and I am told that it not
unfrequently happens that lucky men and professional gamblers
make the rounds of the various county fairs and the luck of both
continues until the end of the season.
Sibthorp was not the life of the party at lunch, but Hepburn was
in high spirits.
I judged that Sibthorp had been tried and found wanting and that
Hepburn had been accounted worthy. Jack and Billy were their
usual irresponsible selves and Tom bubbled over with a merriment
that was at times elephantine but always genuine.
After lunch Sibthorp came to me and we strolled away naturally
and easily. I put on my best father confessor air and waited for
him to unbosom himself.
“It’s all over,” said he.
“What? You’ve asked her?”
“Yes.”
He looked so dejected that I grasped his hand.
“Maybe a cattle show was a poor place,” said I.
“I chose a poorer,” said he, “I asked her in the
merry-go-round.”
“Wha-at?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to be romantic. It has often struck me that
many a girl says yes because it is moonlight, or the lane is
shady, or the breeze is balmy. You see I look at it from the
point of view of a writer—and I thought I’d strip it of all
glamour after I’d made up my mind—thanks to you—that I had a
chance, and so when she said she’d like to ride around on the
elephant I was fool enough to sit alongside of her on a blame
little donkey and there wasn’t anybody within ear shot as the
next thing behind was a wagon and they’re not popular. And just
before the thing started I—well I asked her, and she burst out
laughing and then she got mad and then the old thing started and
we had to ride till it stopped, and then she asked me to take
her away because she felt dizzy and I took her away and we ran
plump into Hepburn and he asked her to go and see a man selling
whips, and I went down the road a mile and wished I’d never been
born. I think she felt insulted.”
I looked the other way.
“Why don’t you try again?”
“Thank you. I know when I’ve had enough.”
He left me and I went behind a large oak and sat on the grass
and laughed until I cried. The idea of a sensible man sitting on
a wooden donkey and asking a pretty girl on a wooden elephant if
she would care to ride the merry-go-round of life with him.
“I’m afraid that Ellery is artificial,” said Ethel when I told
her.
“But Hepburn is the real thing,” said I.
It was in the middle of the afternoon that Ethel and I were
sitting together in a little pine grove. I had been telling her
the events of the morning and now we were resting on the grass
and watching the farmer folk. Oakham fair day is the great day
for exchanging “visits.” Two elderly men met.
“Well, how are you doin’ it!”
“Oh, the way I always do. You’re lookin’ abaout the same. Leetle
more gray but I guess you’re able to do the chores?”
“Oh, yes, ain’t had to call in Maria to do that yet. You seem to
be stavin off death.”
“Fooled him so fur. Git me in the end though. That your
daughter?”
“No, that’s my grandchild.”
“Well, well. Looks like your daughter Libby.”
“Libby’s daughter.”
“By Godfrey, time _has_ a way of gittin’ along. Beats these
automobiles.”
“Doos so. Well, glad I seen yer. Oakham Fair’s gre’t day to see
folks. Most interestin’ exhibit. I say folks is the most
interestin’ exhibit.”
“Ye-es, yes. Be’n comin’ here thirty-five years. Ever sence the
fust fair.”
“Me too. Bet ye a cooky you won’t do it no thirty-five years
more. Not ’nless the good Lord fergits to git ye.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Well, good bye, Silas. ’Member me to the folks.”
“I will so. Like’s not you’ll find ’em ’raound here sum’er’s. Be
good.”
“Same to you y’old rascal.”
The two men shook hands and passed on and then we heard the end
of a conversation on the other side of the tree—a conversation
that was being carried on while two walked together.
“No, Mr. Edson, a woman always feels honoured and I hope we may
always be friends.”
Ethel looked at me and her lips parted. It was Cherry’s voice.
We waited to hear Hepburn speak but he did not do so.
The steps died away and Ethel rose to her feet and looked down
the pathway.
Cherry was walking toward the edge of the pine woods and by her
side walked a young man in whom the animation of youth seemed to
be temporarily arrested.
He had not spoken a word in our hearing but we knew from the
shape of his back that it was Jack.
“Three proposals in one day,” said Ethel in awed tones.
“Well, she’s worth it,” said I, and was a little astonished that
Ethel did not second my assertion.
“Isn’t that Pat Casey walking with a priest?” asked Ethel
suddenly.
“Yes, that’s Father Hogan and Rev. Mr. Hughson told me he was
one of the greatest influences for good in Egerton.”
“I wonder if he will stop Pat from using profanity.”
“Maybe he won’t try to.”
Just then Pat left the priest, touching his cap as he did so,
and a moment later he saw us and hurried over with the light
little step peculiar to him, lifting his shocking bad hat as he
came.
“Hello, Pat,” said I. “So you are considered a good enough man
to walk with Father Hogan?”
His eyes twinkled.
“Sure it’s honoured I am by walkin’ wid him. He’s a hell of a
fine man. I was just tellin’ him so. Didn’t he walk a mile out
of his way yisterday to tell me he seen me ould cow I lost,
roamin’ toward Maltby. First he told them to pen it up, an’ thin
he come an’ told me. He’s dam sure of Heaven, that man is! No
airs on him at all an’ him a friend of Archbishop Ireland.”
“Well, Pat, how’s the ould scut. Did you enter her for the
race?”
“Sure I did not. She got at the oats last night an’ was feelin’
so fine this marnin’ that I knew’t’d be a sure t’hing if I
entered her.”
He winked his eye at Ethel and then he said:
“An’ how’s the cherry blossom?”
“Pat, you’re a poet. She’s still on the branch.”
“Egorry, it’s the lucky man that picks her. A fine gerrul. None
better in Ireland an’ that’s sayin’ arl there is to be said. I
suppose ye’ll be go’n’ down one of those fine days now.”
“Yes, we expect to go to-morrow.”
“Is it so soon an’ the glory of the year so nair. Sure it’s
sorry I’ll be to see the lights arl gone when I’m passin’ by in
the avenin’.”
He took off his hat and extended a very dirty hand to Ethel.
She took it bravely and he said,
“If y’ave need of th’ould scut come an’ take her an’ welkim. An’
come up next yair. Give me regards to the young leddy. I’d a
darter just like her wance.”
We smiled involuntarily as we contrasted Cherry and Pat.
“I’d a darter just like her, but she got consumpted an’ she’s
wid the saints. She was a hell of a good gerrul.”
His eyes moistened and I understood for the first time what had
made him the good-hearted man he was.
With a wave of his hand he walked lightly away.
“And yet some people don’t like the Irish,” said Ethel.
We all attended the races but they did not merit a description.
They were almost as tame as a hippodrome race at a circus, and I
verily believe that th’ould scut would have stood some show of
winning had Pat entered him.
Cherry sat next to Ethel on the grandstand and to me she looked
distraught. She had little to say and I, with my usual habit of
adding two to two, made up my mind that she had accepted Hepburn
and was now sorry that she had done so. I could not account for
her lack of animation in any other way.
I suggested my thoughts to Ethel but she said they were
nonsensical; that Cherry was very sorry to have to leave the
place; that she had become attached to Clover Lodge and that she
hated the thought of going up to her aunt at Bar Harbor.
She recovered her spirits in the “Mammoth Restaurant.” The long
tables were so unlike anything to which she had been accustomed
that the very novelty pleased her, and as we were all together
at one end we were able to do and say pretty much what we wanted
and we were a gay crowd.
We had met pretty nearly everybody we had ever seen in the
Egertons, and we had bid good bye to old Mrs. Hartlett just
before the races began.
She having a mind to try a new sensation and one that would have
been impossible in her childhood, had come over with her
physician in his electric run-about and it was something of a
shock to see the dainty little old lady accustomed to move
slowly and with dignity perched up in one of the fastest things
on wheels, but it was just such open-mindedness that had enabled
her to remain young for one hundred years and we bade her good
bye quite sure that she at least would be in Egerton another
summer whoever else might drop by the way.
Minerva was in her element all day long. A crowd was a crowd
after all even if it was composed of country people, and she
kept herself and James in the thick of it.
Once we saw her treating six strange little darkey boys and
girls to pink lemonade and once I saw her by a happy fluke throw
a left-handed ball at the colored man who was soliciting tries
at his hard head and she hit him fair and square and then hit
the crowd by her hearty, carefree laughter.
There was one little incident connected with Minerva’s day at
the fair that might have been serious if Minerva’s star had not
been in the ascendant when she herself was.
A balloon ascension had been advertised for the afternoon and
Ethel had wanted to go over and see it, but I told her that the
filling of balloons by gas was always a slow process and that
we’d see it when it went up.
Now, James was more gallant, and when Minerva asked him to take
her to see the balloon go up he took her to the very spot.
It so happened that when the balloon was filled and they were
ready to cast off the guy ropes and go up to the extent of the
long rope Minerva took it into her sportive head to catch hold
of the rope and the next minute the balloon went up with the
stout Minerva dangling beneath.
Three things went up—no, four. The balloon, Minerva, a shriek,
and a shout—the latter from the crowd.
Ethel and I had been in the main tent looking at the
horticultural display, but at the familiar shriek we ran out.
They had stopped the ascent of the balloon but they flew Minerva
full a hundred feet above the crowd, one foot around the rope,
the other frantically kicking.
It was not an adventure that could have happened to anyone but
Minerva or if it had happened to any other person he would have
fallen to earth and cast a gloom over the fair.
But somehow the crowd seemed to realize that it was a time for
mirth and that the girl would come down all right and they
howled advice at her. Some told her to climb into the car, a
physical impossibility for her, while others asked her to do
tricks, supposing that she was an acrobat in disguise. In fact I
think it was the general opinion that she was an acrobat.
Poor Minerva an acrobat. Far from it.
“Oh, James, come an’ git me. I’ll die up here. Oh, Lawdy, why’d
I come up?”
Minerva was unconsciously quoting her own utterance of a few
weeks before. Why had she come up, indeed. Was it to end her
days in the clouds?
Much can happen in a little space of time and although there was
a good deal of give and take on the part of Minerva and the
crowd I don’t suppose she was up in the air many seconds. We can
afford to laugh at it now but at the time, aside from its
ludicrous aspect there was a terrifying side to it. Minerva was
not built to fly to mother earth from such a height and survive.
But although she was frightened half to death she did not lose
her grip, and her foot around the rope lessened the strain on
her hands and James and several others sprang to the rope and
began to haul her down as soon as they could.
When she felt her feet touch earth she fell on her face in a
dead faint and then the crowd learned for the first time that
she was not an attraction of the fair.
A dash of lemonade—the nearest approach to water handy—brought
her to her senses, but her feelings were hurt and she would not
listen to James’s apologies (although what he found to apologise
for I don’t know, seeing he had not been to blame; but he was
very gallant)—she would not listen to his apologies but flounced
off to a place far from the madding crowd just as Miss Pussy had
retired after the humiliation of her upward trip and for the
space of full five minutes Minerva refused to be comforted.
But peanuts have a mollifying effect on some dispositions and
James bought a bulging bag and presented them to the amateur
_ascenseur_ and all went merry as a marriage bell from that time
on.
* * * * *
It was moonlight when the slow-moving oxen, decorated with their
prize-ribbons (for they had won first prize) took up the
homeward march.
We had a free road in a very short time for everything else
passed us, and we sang songs and yodled and tried to forget that
to-morrow would end all the happy days.
Coming to a steep hill we all got out, although Mr. Goodman said
there was no need. But sitting Turk fashion is easier for Turks
than for Americans, and we felt the need of limbering up.
The ascent was flanked on either side by luxuriant maples that
made a tunnel through which flecks of moonlight dappled the
road. When we had gone half way up the moon seemed perched on
the apex of the hill, golden and radiant, and while Ethel and I
looked two figures walked into the shining circle—two figures
that were very loverlike.
It was impossible to miss the significance.
Cherry and Hepburn.
Their heads were facing each other and they were two black
silhouettes representing happiness.
I looked at poor Sibthorp who was walking just ahead of us. He,
too, had seen the silhouette as it was outlined for one brief
moment against the golden background, and I knew that his
thoughts were not happy. I knew that Jack and Billy were
somewhere behind us and a minute later Tom and his wife took the
place of the lovers, but there was room for an ox team between
them. And yet Tom and his wife are happy. But after twenty years
silhouettes against the moon are not loverlike, however
loverlike may be the hearts that are beating ten feet apart.
That night, after all had retired, Ethel stood before the glass
taking out her hair-pins and she addressed my figure in the
mirror.
“What _do_ you suppose?” said she in a low voice.
“I suppose I’m tired,” said I yawning.
“Cherry is engaged.”
“Tell me something new,” said I. “Where are they going to live.”
“In his studio—”
“What,” I almost shouted. “Is it Jack after all.”
“No, goosie,” said she fondly. “It is Billy.”
“And the moon?—”
“That was Billy and not Hepburn. I was fooled too.”
“But Billy hasn’t a cent.”
“No, but she has faith in his future, and she says she has never
loved any one else since she first knew him, years ago.”
“Ethel Vernon,” said I. “As a character reader I am not a
success. I would have sworn that it lay between Hepburn and
Sibthorp.”
“You must remember that Cherry is not a character in one of your
stories but a real girl,” said Ethel.
“Well, I wish her joy of her long wait.”
“It won’t be as long a wait as it would be if she had rejected
him,” was Ethel’s Hibernian response.
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