"GENTLE ANNIE"
Wallie had told himself emphatically that he would never speak again to
Helene Spenceley. That would be an easy matter since she had glared at
him, when they had passed as she was going in for breakfast, in a way
that would have made him afraid to speak even if he had intended to. To
refrain from thinking of her was something different.
He sat on a rustic bench on The Colonial lawn watching the silly robins
and wondering why she had called him "Gentle Annie." It was clear enough
that nothing flattering was intended, but what did she mean by it? There
was no reason that he could see for her to fly at him--quite the
contrary. He had been very generous and gentlemanly, it seemed to him,
in congratulating Pinkey when it was due to them that he, Wallie, was
thrown into the petunias. His neck was still stiff from the fall and no
one had remembered to inquire about it--that was another reason for the
disgruntled mood in which the moment found him. The women were making
perfect _fools_ of themselves over that Pinkey--they were at it now, he
could hear them cackling on the veranda.
What he could not understand was why they should act as if there was
something _amusing_ about a woman who came from west of Buffalo and then
make a hero of a man from the Wild and Woolly. Yet they always did it,
he had noticed. Why, that Pinkey could not speak a grammatical sentence
and they hung on his every word, breathless. It was disgusting!
Wallie picked up a pebble and pelted a robin.
He wished the undertow would catch that Spenceley girl. If he should
reach her when she was going down for the third time she would _have_ to
thank him for saving her and that would about kill her. He decided that
he would make a point of bathing when she did, on the very remote chance
that it might happen.
"Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie!" The name rankled.
Wallie pitched a pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it.
Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltily
toward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouraged
robins, was looking.
Pinkey was crossing the lawn with the obvious intention of joining him.
"Gee!" he exclaimed, sinking down beside Wallie, "I've nearly sprained
my tongue answerin' questions. 'Is it true that snakes shed their skin,
and do the hot pools in the Yellowstone Park freeze in winter?' I'm
goin' to drift pretty pronto--I can't stand visitin'."
"Do you like the East, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Wallie, formally.
"I'm glad they's a West," Pinkey replied, cryptically.
"You and Miss Spenceley are from the same section, I take it?"
"Yep--Wyomin'."
"Er--by the way"--Wallie's tone was elaborately casual--"what did she
mean yesterday when she called me 'Gentle Annie'?"
Pinkey moved uneasily.
"Could you give me the precise significance?" persisted Wallie.
"I could, but I wouldn't like to," Pinkey replied, drily
"Oh, don't spare my feelings," said Wallie, loftily, "there's nothing
_she_ could say would hurt them."
"If that's the way you feel--she meant you were 'harmless'."
"I trust so," Wallie responded with dignity.
"I'd ruther be called a--er--a Mormon," Pinkey observed.
Shocked at the language, Wallie demanded:
"It is, then, an epithet of opprobrium?"
"I can't say as to that," replied Pinkey, judicially, "but she meant you
were a 'perfect lady'."
"It's more than I can say of her!" Wallie retorted, reddening.
Pinkey merely grinned and shrugged a shoulder.
He arose a moment later as if the conversation and company alike bored
him.
"Well--I'm goin' to pack my war-bag and ramble. Why don't you come West
and git civilized? With your figger you ought to be good fer somethin'.
S'long, feller!"
Naturally, Wallie was not comforted by his conversation with Pinkey. Now
he knew himself to have been insulted, and resented it, but along with
his indignation was such a feeling of dissatisfaction with his life as
he had never known. His brow contracted while he thought of the monotony
of it. Just as this summer would be a duplicate of every other summer so
the winter would be a repetition of the many winters he had spent in
Florida with Aunt Mary. After a few months at home they would migrate
with the robins. He would meet the same people he had seen all summer.
They would complain of the Southern cooking and knit and tat while they
babbled amiably of themselves and the members of their family and their
doings. The men would smoke and compare business experiences when they
had finished flaying the Administration. Discontent grew within him as
he reviewed it. Why couldn't he and Aunt Mary do something different for
the winter? By George! he would suggest it to her!
He got up with alacrity, cheerful immediately.
She was not on the veranda and Miss Eyester was of the opinion that she
had gone to her room to take her tonic.
"I have turned the shoulder, Wallie." Mrs. Appel held up the sweater
triumphantly.
"That's good," said Wallie, feeling uncomfortable with Miss Spenceley
within hearing.
"Wallie," Mrs. Stott called to him, "will you give me the address of
that milliner whose hats you said you liked particularly? Somewhere on
Walnut, wasn't it?"
"Sixteenth and Walnut," Wallie replied, shortly.
"What do you think I'm doing, Wallie?"
"I can't imagine, Mrs. Budlong."
"I'm rolling!"
"Rolling?"
"To reduce. C. D. says I look like a cement-mixer in action."
Wallie was annoyed by the confidence.
Miss Gaskett beckoned him.
"Have you seen Cutie, Wallie?"
"No," curtly.
"When I called her this morning she looked at me with eyes like saucers
and simply _tore_ into the bushes. Do you suppose anybody has abused
her?"
Mr. Cone, who was standing in the doorway, went back to his desk
hastily.
"I'm not in her confidence," said Wallie with so much sarcasm that they
all looked at him.
Miss Spenceley was talking to Mr. Appel, who was listening so
attentively that Wallie wondered what she was saying. They were sitting
close to the window of the reception room and it occurred to Wallie that
there would be no harm in stepping inside and gratifying his curiosity.
The conversation was not of a private nature and in other circumstances
he would have joined them, so, on his way to the elevator to find his
aunt, he paused a moment to hear what the girl was saying.
Since she was speaking emphatically and a lace curtain was the only
barrier, Wallie found out without difficulty:
"I have no use for a squaw-man."
"You mean," Mr. Appel interrogated, "a white man who marries an Indian
woman?"
"Not necessarily. I mean a man who permits a woman to support him
without making any effort on his part to do a man's work. He may be an
Adonis and gifted to the point of genius, but I have no respect for him.
He----"
Wallie did not linger. He remembered the ancient adage, and while he did
not consider himself an eavesdropper or believe that Miss Spenceley
meant anything personal, nevertheless the shoe fit to such a nicety that
he hurried to the elevator, his step accelerated by the same sense of
guilt that had sent Mr. Cone scuttling to his refuge behind the counter.
"Squaw-man"--the term was as new to him as "Gentle Annie."
As Miss Eyester had opined, Miss Macpherson was taking her tonic, or
about to.
"I've come to make a suggestion, Auntie," Wallie began, with a little
diffidence.
"What is it?" Miss Macpherson was shaking the bottle.
"Let's not go South this winter."
"Where then?" She smiled indulgently as she measured out the medicine.
"Why not California or Arizona?" he suggested.
"I don't believe this tonic helps me a particle." She made a wry face as
she swallowed it.
"That's it," he declared, eagerly. "You need a change--we both do."
"I'm too set in my ways to enjoy new experiences, and I don't like
strangers. We might catch contagious diseases, and there is no place
where we could be so comfortable as in Florida. No," she shook her head
kindly but firmly, "we will go South as usual."
"Oh--_sugar!_" The vehemence with which Wallie uttered the expletive
showed the extent of his disappointment.
"Wallie! I'm surprised at you!" She regarded him with annoyance.
"I'm tired of going to the same places year after year, doing the same
thing, seeing the same old fossils!"
"Wallie, you are speaking of my friends and yours," she reminded him.
"They're all right, but I like to make new ones. I don't want to go,
Aunt Mary."
She said significantly:
"Don't you think you are a little ungrateful--in the circumstances?"
It was the first time she had ever reminded him of his dependency.
"If you mean I am an ingrate, that is an unpleasant word, Aunt Mary."
She shrugged her shoulder.
"Place your own interpretation upon it, Wallace."
"Perhaps you think I am not capable of earning my own living?"
"I have not _said_ so."
"But you mean it!" he cried, hotly.
Miss Macpherson was nearly as amazed as Wallie to hear herself saying:
"Possibly you had better try it."
She had taken two cups of strong coffee that morning and her nerves were
over-stimulated, and perhaps with the intuition of a jealous woman she
half suspected that "the girl from Wyoming" had something to do with his
restlessness and desire to go West. The time she most dreaded was the
day when she would have to share her nephew with another woman.
Wallie's eyes were blazing when he answered:
"I shall! I shall never be beholden to you for another penny. When I
wanted to do something for myself you wouldn't let me. You're not fair,
Aunt Mary!"
Pale and breathing heavily in their emotion, they looked at each other
with hard, angry eyes--eyes in which there was not a trace of the
affection which for years had existed between them.
"Suit yourself," she said, finally, and turned her back on him.
Wallie went to his room in a daze, too bewildered to realize immediately
what had happened. That he had quarrelled with his aunt, permanently,
irrevocably, seemed incredible. But he would never eat her bread of
charity again--he had said it. As for her, he knew her Scotch
stubbornness too well to think that she would offer it. No, he was sure
the break was final.
A sense of freedom came to him gradually as it grew upon him that he was
loose from the apron-strings that had led him since childhood. He need
never again eat food he did not like because it was "good for him." He
could sit in draughts if he wanted to and sneeze his head off. He could
put on his woollen underwear when he got darned good and ready. He could
swim when there were white caps in the harbour and choose his own
clothing.
A fine feeling of exultation swept over Wallie as he strode up and down
with an eye to the way he looked in the mirror. He was free of petticoat
domination. He was no longer a "squaw-man," and he would not be one
again for a million dollars! He would "show" Aunt Mary--he would "show"
Helene Spenceley--he would "show" _everybody!_