"BURNING HIS BRIDGES"
Wallie opened his eyes one morning with the subconscious feeling that
something portentous was impending though he was still too drowsy to
remember it.
He yawned and stretched languidly and luxuriously on a bed which was the
last word in comfort, since Mr. Cone's pride in The Colonial beds was
second only to that of his pride in the hotel's reputation for
exclusiveness. With especially made mattresses and monogrammed linen,
silken coverlets and imported blankets, his boasts were amply justified,
and the beds perhaps accounted for the frequency with which the guests
tried to get into the dining room when the breakfast hours were over.
A bit of yellow paper on the chiffonier brought Wallie to his full sense
as his eyes fell upon it. It was the answer to a telegram he had sent
Pinkey Fripp, in Prouty, Wyoming, making inquiries as to the possibility
of taking up a homestead.
It read:
They's a good piece of ground you can file on if you got
the guts to hold it.
PINKEY.
Wallie grew warm every time he thought of such a message addressed to
him coming over the wire. Though worse than inelegant, and partially
unintelligible, it was plain enough that what he wanted was there if he
went for it, and he had replied that Pinkey might look for him shortly
in Prouty.
And to-day he was leaving! He was saying good-bye forever to the hotel
that was like home to him and the friends that were as his own
relatives! He had $2,100 in real money--a legacy--and his clothing. In
his new-born spirit of independence he wished that he might even leave
his clothes behind him, but he had changed his mind when he had figured
the cost of buying others.
His aunt had taken no notice of Wallie's preparations for departure. The
news of the rupture had spread quickly, and the sympathies of the guests
were equally divided. All were agreed, however, that if Wallie went West
he would soon have enough of it and be back in time to go South for the
winter.
Helene Spenceley had left unexpectedly upon the receipt of a telegram,
and it was one of Wallie's favourite speculations as to what she would
say when she heard he was a neighbour--something disagreeable, probably.
With the solemnity which a person might feel who is planning his own
funeral, Wallie arose and made a careful toilet. It would be the last in
the room that he had occupied for so many summers. The hangings were
handsome, the chairs luxurious, and his feet sunk deep in the nap of the
velvet carpet. The equipment of the white, commodious bathroom was
perfection, and no article of furniture was missing from his bedroom
that could contribute to the comfort of a modish young man accustomed to
every modern convenience.
As Wallie took his shower and dusted himself with scented talcum and
applied the various lotions and skin-foods recommended for the
complexion, he wondered what the hotel accommodations would be like in
Prouty, Wyoming. Not up to much, he imagined, but he decided that he
would duplicate this bathroom in his own residence as soon as he had his
homestead going. Wallie's knowledge of Wyoming was gathered chiefly from
an atlas he had borrowed from Mr. Cone. The atlas stated briefly that it
contained 97,890 square miles, mostly arid, and a population of 92,531.
It gave the impression that the editors themselves were hazy on Wyoming,
which very likely was the truth, since it had been published in Mr.
Cone's childhood when the state was a territory.
What the atlas omitted, however, was supplied by Wallie's imagination.
When he closed his eyes he could see great herds of cattle--his--with
their broad backs glistening in the sunshine, and vast tracts--his
also--planted in clover, oats, barley, or whatever it was they grew in
the country. For diversion, he saw himself scampering over the country
on horseback on visits to the friendly neighbours, entertaining
frequently himself and entertained everywhere. As for Helene
Spenceley--she would soon learn the manner of man she had belittled!
This frame of mind was responsible for the fact that when he had
finished dressing and gone below he spoke patronizingly to Mr. Appel,
who paid an income tax on fourteen million.
It was a wrench after all--the going--and the fact that his aunt did not
relent made it the harder. It was the first time he ever had packed his
own boxes and decided upon the clothes in which he should travel. But
she sat erect and unyielding at the far end of the veranda while he was
in the midst of a sympathetic leave-taking from the guests of The
Colonial. There were tears in Mrs. Budlong's eyes when she warned him
not to fall into bad habits, and Wallie's were close to the surface when
he promised her he would not.
"Aw--you'll be back when it gets cold weather," said Mr. Appel.
"I shall succeed or leave my bones in Wyoming!" Wallie declared,
dramatically.
Mr. Appel snickered: "They'll help fertilize the soil, which I'm told
needs it." His early struggles had made Mr. Appel callous.
Miss Macpherson, looking straight ahead, gave no indication that she saw
her nephew coming.
"Will you say good-bye to me, Aunt Mary?"
She appeared not to see the hand he put out to her.
"I trust you will have a safe journey, Wallace." Her voice was a breath
from the Arctic.
He stood before her a moment feeling suddenly friendless. "This makes me
very unhappy, Aunt Mary," he said, sorrowfully.
Since she did not answer, he could only leave her, and her failure to
ask him to write hurt as much as the frigidity of the leave-taking.
The motor-bus had arrived and the chauffeur was piling his luggage on
top of it, so, with a final handshake, Wallie said good-bye, perhaps
forever, to his friends of The Colonial.
They were all standing with their arms about each other's waists or with
their hands placed affectionately upon each other's shoulders as the bus
started, calling "Good-bye and good luck" with much waving of
handkerchiefs. Only his aunt sat grim-visaged and motionless, refusing
to concede so much as a glance in her nephew's direction.
Wallie, in turn, took off his girlish sailor and swung it through the
bus window and wafted kisses at the dear, amiable folk of The Colonial
until the motor had passed between the stately pillars of the entrance.
Then he leaned back with a sigh and with the feeling of having "burned
his bridges behind him."