tell her mother she come to me. She must sneak like a thief and lie. It
is not good, that kind of liberty. Liberty is a great thing, my friend.
You all go mad and have red-fire and elections and speeches and big
ugly bands and Mr. Cleveland is made president, and _hélas!_ millions
of free Americans weep, weep, weep zet zeh must have Mr. Cleveland
for president. America is not the land of liberty. It is the land of
prohibition, yes; sobriety, yes; uniformity, yes; but here is not
liberty. Of all peoples in Mount Airy only I perhaps have liberty. You
would not want to live like me, eh? You look at me. _Zut!_ I read you
mind. You say, ‘Not on your tin-type!’ Then you do not much care for
liberty.”
Many such days the little group had together. German days, French days,
Italian days came in regular succession. “Chuck” disputed with him
about the days, and Bardek took great joy in his wordy battles over the
sort of weather that prevailed. To all but “Chuck” it was quite evident
that his succession of days was a transparent device to give Gorgas
constant exercise in the fluent, living language; but save for the
laughing eyes and occasional wink, he stoutly stood for the theory that
the weather made his skin change. Bohemians, he claimed, belonged to no
country and to every country and were doomed all their lives to slip
back and forth through various national personalities. The weather did
it.
“You have only one country!” he told “Chuck” scornfully. “How sorry I
am for you! So you hooray for the stars and stripes, and you make the
grand racket on the Fourt’ of July, an’ you rage at Sout’ America, and
Europe, an’ all the other little peoples. Poof!” he blew himself up
into his own notion of the spread-eagle American orator. “You could
fight the whole wor-r-ld, wit’ hands tied behind the back--and the
whole wor-r-ld would laugh in zere sleeve, and make such pictures in
the comic papers, about which you would know nothing. Oh, how sorry I
am for you, Chucks, who have only one country, when I, Bardek, have
so many! In France I sing the Marseillaise on the fourteen of July;
in Germany I celebrate the eighteen of January, the birthday of the
Empire; and in Poland, on the twelve of September, I drink to Sobieski,
who saved Poland from the Turk--an’ at no time do I rage, and make
boasts at any country. You are proud of only one land, Chucks; I,
Bardek, am homesick for all the wor-r-ld!”
One day when they went back through the hidden path and under the
arch of briers into the enclosure, not a vestige of Bardek and his
belongings remained.
“He will come back when he wishes to be here again,” Gorgas explained,
with just a shade of disappointment. But she did not wholly conceal her
gratification. Lately she had been feeling terribly guilty over her
clandestine meetings with the Bohemian. She could date the beginning
of her worry over the matter. It had come suddenly in the night when
she awoke trembling and weeping over she knew not what. Fires burned
in her, and she discovered an intense longing to give up what had been
heretofore the most helpful experience in her life: her solitude, her
freedom from the necessity of communicating. Now she cried out for a
brother or a sister or a mother to whom she could tell everything,
even trivial things. Until now she had fared alone, self-sufficient
as a tree, and had never spoken to anyone, even to Bardek, of what
meant most to her. On this night, as she lay awake, she reveled in the
despairs of loneliness.
At about that time Blynn had appeared and had satisfied her need. To
him she had unburdened, and had come away pure and heightened as after
confession.
All this had made her self-conscious in her visits to Bardek. He had
remarked the change in her, and talked about it, as was his way; which
made her, somehow, ashamed. When her cheeks flamed under his persistent
candor, he would call to his wife in great delight. In some Hungarian
dialect he would invite her to look at the bud bursting; the little,
green leaves unfolding; the fresh, sweet petals stretching themselves.
There never was any doubt as to his meaning.
After that when Gorgas parted the elder branches and looked into his
bower she came with the face of a child-woman, full of subtle new
dignity, an unstudied preoccupation, as if the mind within were very,
very busy on its great affairs.
And guilt seized her, without giving a single reason. “It is wrong!”
sang a humming in her ears. “What is wrong?” she would ask herself
wildly. “It is wrong! It is wrong!” the voices would cry; and no one
could tell her _what_ was wrong.
With Blynn beside her she looked steadily at the blanched circle left
by the tent.
“Well!” she gave a deep, healthy exhalation, and stepped back into
the narrow path. “I’m both sorry and glad. I don’t know why I should
be glad; but I am. It is all mixed--m-mixed u-up.” Her lips quivered
though her eyes smiled gamely. “I don’t know whether I am going to cry
or laugh.”
“Shall I toss a coin?” Blynn inquired.
“Chuck” was examining the “hunky” and speculating upon moving in as
soon as he could wheedle a tent out of his father. Blynn and Gorgas
stood close together facing each other in the path. Her eyes searched
his steadily until they slowly brimmed and shut out all view.
“I guess I’m mo-mostly g-glad!” she put out her hands toward him and
lightly touched his sleeve.
“If you cry now,” whispered the man, “you’ll splash me awfully. Let’s
wait till we have more room.”
That decided the matter. It was a hearty burst of girlish laughter
which cleared the air like the proverbial thunder. All the way home
they sang and danced and played “tag” and raced.
“When will Bardek be back?” Blynn asked before he bade the children
goodby.
“Perhaps next week; perhaps next month,” Gorgas conjectured. “Once
he stayed away two months. Oh, he’ll be along again soon. _A tout à
l’heure, m’sieu’_.” She stepped gaily up the walk toward her own door.
“_Auf wiedersehen und -hören und -sprechen._ Until I see you and hear
you and speak you again!”
Yet the month passed away, and another month and many months, but
Cresheim Valley saw no trace of Bardek.
Along in November the mails brought a carefully wrapped package
containing eighty-two dollars and six cents. A note in French said
simply:
“It was a robber who bought your plate, but I will not ask too
much for the art which I stole from Varri. I do penance by taking
so little. The miser! For my silver and copper I charge you a
trifle--which I have taken out. What is here is yours--well earned,
golden child.
“Until we meet and talk again,
“BARDEK.”
After a conference with Mr. Blynn, Gorgas forwarded the package
anonymously to the treasurer of the Children’s Aid Society.
“It is an offering to propitiate the theft from G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri,”
said Blynn; “let us hope it will count as a mass for the peace of
Varri’s penurious soul.”
VII
A “FRENCH DAY” AT NIGHT
Mrs. Levering did not mean to neglect her children; but her life was
busy with the running of a big household, and with the claims of
neighbors, the church, and charitable organizations. In her home life
she was delightfully lax and unsystematic; but it was liberty for all,
not a bad arrangement for domestic happiness, when it works.
Her two children had come along without making much demand upon her.
If they had been frail or sickly she would have been the promptest of
nurses, and perhaps she would have learned more about them; but they
grew along sturdily without so much as a single call for help. As a
result they instinctively repelled coddling. There were no effusive
greetings between mother and daughter, no kissings at night time, and
only the most casual peck at lengthy partings. It was a very sensible
and practical environment; and, on the whole, satisfactory to the
Levering family.
Mrs. Levering treated her daughters as if they were her own age. There
was no “baby-talk” at any stage of their upbringing. Nearly everything
was discussed openly, but that did not mean that the children had a
vote in everything. Unconventional as the mother was in most things,
she threw about the children a protective ring of unwritten rules,
over which there was no debate--almost the same code that her own
mother had used. Gorgas could fight against going to school and win.
School was an expense, anyway; and Gorgas seemed to be doing very well
by herself with such help as the mother fancied Keyser was giving
her; and many children managed pretty well with a tutor or two. But
acquaintances, especially male, were scrutinized and limited; late
night prowlings were forbidden; there was no latch-key for any save the
master-of-the-house--who never went out!--and all letters, outgoing and
incoming, must pass inspection.
So, you see, Mrs. Levering had no tingle of conscience concerning her
children; on the contrary, she had many exalted moments at the thought
of all her prohibitory care over them.
Allen Blynn was O. K.’d as a matter of course. Everyone knew all about
him. He was an honor man at college; his mother was of “good people,”
descendants of somebody or other; and he was of the faculty of the
University. Of course, his manners were right--he used a fork properly;
he was charmingly considerate of ladies; children liked him; and he had
a good, honest face; but the other qualifications, the college honors
and the university degrees really made him “moral,” and therefore a
free and unrestricted companion of her two girls. Besides, the mother
was thrifty enough to see the advantage of securing so excellent and so
inexpensive a tutor for Gorgas.
On the days when he and Gorgas studied together it grew to be the
custom for the tutor to stay on for the informal family dinner, to get
his “pay,” as he had bargained, of good food and good company. They
were jolly affairs, full of gay chatter and serious discussion of men
and things. Blynn radiated on these occasions, for the dinner was his
natural habitat. On the tennis-courts he was an indifferent actor; but
whenever the game was speech, he scored masterfully.
Guests seemed to drop in fortuitously on these evenings, while the
dinner grew imperceptibly more elaborate. With a daughter aged
twenty-two, Mrs. Levering’s instincts told her when to entertain young
people, and Miss Keyser Levering was a more modern mental replica of
her mother. Edwin Morris, the university tennis champion, still in
his late ’teens, was a frequent visitor, as were “Sam” Davis, the
“law-man”; Keyser’s chums, Mary Weston and Betty Sommers; Diccon,
a newspaper-man, and a collegian of Blynn’s time; and Leopold, a
distinguished-looking young English Jew, of the science department of
the University.
Others came and went, but these gradually drifted together to form the
core of a little social group.
On these occasions Gorgas seemed to disappear. She shrank visibly
into the rôle of little girl invited to look on. Her animated and
accomplished sister overpowered her and made her a speechless
dependent. All the gaucheries of childhood came out to daunt her.
She stumbled against things, spilled her salt, and walked about with
ox-like grace. One mild, reproving look from her sister would make her
trebly clumsy for the evening.
Blynn tried often to bring her out, but it only increased her seeming
stupidity. After all, she was a child, he reminded himself, but not
without puzzled memories of the strange age she could put on when they
were alone together.
Keyser, whom Blynn had rechristened “Kate,”--a name which everyone took
up--was so charmingly at ease that in spite of his desire to befriend
the little sister, he found his talk gravitating toward the elder.
And Gorgas was really content to look on, to listen and, above all,
to remain completely unnoticed. She did not always succeed, much
to her public confusion. With Morris, the tennis boy, she was more
comfortable, save when he tried to draw her out into the circle. This
he discovered early he must not do; so he contrived to sit beside her
and tell her about his college pranks in undertones. When he discovered
that she played tennis and had won the Junior cup, he took her in
charge forthwith; and on other days met her on the courts and gave her
an exceptional practice. Their “doubles” combination soon grew to be
practically unbeatable.
One evening the conversation drifted to the culture-war over Latin
and Greek. Blynn was trying to show how the absorption in these
studies, which rarely got beyond the veriest elements, was keeping our
generation from the marvelous literatures of Europe. Centuries from
now, he claimed, the modern languages would be looked upon as even
more classical than the ancients.
“I am handicapped in my work,” he admitted, “because I do not know
Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Italian, German, and French; I mean, really
know them. A school child in any country of Europe would laugh at my
attempts to speak or read the languages. No one ever hinted to me what
were the real tools of scholarship.”
Leopold told of his classical training under tutors in England. He had
begun to read Latin at eight, added Greek at nine, and he could not
remember when he was unable to understand French and German.
“America is giving up foreign languages,” Leopold summed up. “The
students will not put the time on them.”
“But I know they will,” Blynn returned firmly, “if the thing is taught
reasonably. You began at eight and nine, Leopold; well, that’s the age
to do it.”
The conversation threatened to become pedagogic and heavy, but the
girls were interested, too. Mary Weston told of some phenomenal
pianists who had been developed in just that way.
“The teacher told me she took them young, four to five years; visited
them every day. There was no hateful ‘practice.’ ‘Mar-y! have you
done your scales today?’ ‘No-m.’ ‘Then come right in this minute and
do them!’ I can hear my mother calling me yet. Result: ‘Chapel in
the Mountains’ with the left hand over,” she illustrated comically
on the table, “‘Dum, dum, _dum_, twinkle-innkle-ink!’ That’s almost
my repertoire.... This teacher got her youngsters over every
difficulty without a single growl. Master Stewardson--you heard him,
Kate,”--everyone had adopted Blynn’s “Kate”--“at the Willings’--he’s
one of them. Wasn’t he slick?”
Mary drew an imaginary bow across her arm and whined the opening of the
“Spring Song.”
“Bravo!” applauded Leopold, “that’s bully, you know. Sounds just like a
violin--one with a bad throat.”
“I thought she fingered well,” added Davis.
Diccon insisted that he heard an open string. He always abominated the
open string.
A burst of imitators overtook the table, violins, flageolets, bassoons,
bass-viols. Morris took the prize with the sextette from “Lucia” as
done by Sousa on a half-dozen interrupting muted trombones.
“All of which proves,” summed up Betty Sommers, when the fun had died
down, “that none of us knows music.”
Davis, the law-man, protested--he had been a growling bass-viol: “Don’t
say that. We have merely cultivated virtuosity at the expense of--”
“Skill,” “Music,” “Everything,” he was helped out.
“At the expense of--I demand the floor, Madam Chairman--at the expense
of--”
“Our neighbors,” Gorgas put in quietly.
“Good!” cried Davis. “Amendment accepted. Ah! Somnolent and suspicious
Mount Airy! This; night’s joy will be chronicled as dissipation, and
tongues will wag. Here’s to our neighbors,” and he tossed off a
handful of salted almonds.
“We don’t know music,” insisted Blynn, his mind not at all diverted by
the clamor; “and we don’t know anything.”
“I arise to protest,” Mary Weston appealed to Mrs. Levering. “This male
professor has cast aspersions upon the expensive education we girls
have achieved via the instruction imparted at the ‘Misses Warren’s
Select French and English School for Young Ladies.’”
Laughter from the girls showed how much they valued this expensive
training.
“If I had a catalog here,” Mary persisted, “I could prove to you how
thoroughly well we were brung up. ‘You must nevah say, “raised,” my
deah young lady,’” Mary was in full swing imitating the elder Miss
Warren. “‘Beets are “raised”; turnips and cabbages are “raised”; young
ladies are “reahed,” ah! “reahed”!’”
“Kate” joined in with a mock quotation from the catalog. Interruptions
were frequent. “‘The young ladies of this school are taught the French
language according to the natural method. Conversation is encouraged.
All the work of the French class is conducted entirely in the French
language. A correct accent is insisted upon.’”
Imitation of the French teachers followed, along with samples of the
kind of French that was “encouraged.”
“There’s my proof,” Blynn went on. “Everyone here has studied French
for one or more years. Some of us have been abroad where each had a
chance to test it out. Who really knows any French, except Leopold? I
don’t mean ability to read. Anybody can guess what French means; but
can anyone here really talk and think in French? I have met German
boys, still in school, who could talk with me in English and could pass
me many times in French. They got it all out of their schools. In other
words, they gave their time, the most precious hours of their lives,
and got something lasting.”
The conversation broke in two. The upper end of the table were agreeing
with Blynn, the lower end were trying with much laughter to carry on a
discussion in French.
“_Je vous aime, je vous adore, que voulez-vous encore?_” Betty remarked
to Diccon. “It means, ‘I just dote on you, Dicky-boy.’”
“_Je ne comprends pas_,” replied Diccon. “Score a point for me. It’s
all French, every bit of it guaranteed. _Je ne comprends pas._ ‘I
don’t understand.’ I used it all over Paris. ‘I don’t understand’ fits
anywhere.”
“_J’ai un petit frère_,” volunteered Davis. “It means, ‘I have a little
brother.’ I haven’t any little brother, but that’s French, all right.”
“_Adieu! Adieu! Adieu!_” said Kate.
They were taking turns. Blynn saw a chance to surprise them.
“Here! children,” he rapped on the table. “I have a game for you. Each
of us will show off his French. Leopold is debarred; he is French. No!
We’ll let him in.... Let me see,” he glanced hurriedly about the table.
“We’ll take partners, each talk to his _vis-à-vis_.” He produced his
watch. “I’ll make it easy. One full minute speech and one full minute
reply. Time out for all pauses. Repetitions not allowed. Get ready.
Kate and Diccon will begin, the gentleman first.”
Gorgas leaned over eager-eyed to watch the fun, until swiftly it came
to her that she and Leopold would be last. Toward Blynn she cast a
terrified appeal.
While the first two were blundering joyfully through their minute he
slipped around to her and whispered.
“Please carry this out for me! If you say the word, I’ll have them
excuse you.... I’ll take all the blame. It’s only fun. Please!”
“All right,” she nodded. But her face, for a humming second, lost some
of its ruddy tan.
Their ludicrous book sentences encouraged her, and made her feel
suddenly strong and unabashed. Into her mind came pictures of clear,
blue-sky days with Bardek gesticulating and spouting his vivid jargon.
Davis was telling about his brother. “I have a little brother. _J’ai un
petit frère_,” he announced with great eagerness, and stopped. Betty
had got through by cleverly remembering a conjugation: “I drink, you
drink, he drinks, she drinks, it drinks, we drink,” etc. Mary claimed
foul on the ground that conjugations didn’t make sense; but her own
contribution was a familiar medley: “_Monsieur, bureau, Lafayette,
encore, dèpot, merci, madame, bon-bon_.” Morris tried “Alice in
Wonderland.” “’Twas brillig and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble
on the wabe,” but was caught; although he insisted that it was as much
French as anything.
To be sure, no one was really trying. Betty, no doubt, could have
blundered along tolerably well, and Davis had taken part in a French
play, much of which he probably remembered. The game was a frolic and
was so played, until Leopold spoke.
“_Ma chère amie_,” he leaned over and gazed earnestly at Gorgas. He
was a dark, grave looking man, the type of scholar Jew. Everyone,
of course, could follow his carefully chosen phrases. “When I look
into your eyes,” he said slowly, “I see treasure there; for you have
that which the world, with all its seeming care for franc and sou,
regards ever as above price. First, you have youth, with the future
all to spend; and you have faithfulness, a vast store--I see it in
your steady brown eyes; and you have beauty born of these two, youth
and faithfulness. And besides, while you speak seldom, and sit serene
apart, you have rare, rare thoughts. Would that I could share them.”
It seemed almost like a trick to play upon Gorgas, the unschooled.
There was a little uneasiness. Mrs. Levering was about to give an
appropriate excuse when Gorgas replied.
Her tones were deep and French to the very roots. Her features changed;
turns and twists of eye and mouth, which she had caught unwittingly
from Bardek, swept across the animated young face and gave a new
charm to her words. Ah, how often lately had Bardek made much that
same speech to her! And how often had she flamed in reply! Tonight
she was swift to rebuke the man before her, first, for his open
flattery--Gorgas was quite wrong, here, as she found out later; Leopold
was never more honest--and secondly, for his attempt to make a public
jest of her. Gorgas could never believe that she was good to look at;
always she grew flustered at sudden praise, suspecting some hidden
irony.
She came back with nervous, rapid-fire Gallic, a sudden contrast to his
deliberate language. She told him that he should not have said that
sort of thing to her, especially before all these people. It may be
true. She would not deny that she had all the virtues, but her friends
were those who did not gabble smart phrases about her eyes and her ears
and her nose as if they were properties for sale. Why couldn’t he have
talked of impersonal things as the others had? Well! He would be paid
back in kind. Well! She would look into his eyes, and what does she
see? _Sapristi!_ Nothing; for his eyes are away. They are busy watching
the faces of girls and reporting lies about them!
Leopold, astonished at the spirited attack, offered a most humble
apology, and protested his sincerity, keeping steadily to the French,
which was to him almost a second tongue. She tossed him aside with a
swift change of mood. She knew that it was all fun; but that sort of
personal praise always made her unhappy.
He had not thought she would understand, he offered in excuse.
That did not help his case a bit, she returned quickly, for then he
had evidently sought deliberately to make her a laughing stock. “Vous
voulez rire,” she said, “mais je n’aime pas qu’on se moque de moi!”
Their parley grew less warm. He forced her to laugh by pointing out the
gaping crowd of elders. He told her that no one present could possibly
give a translation of their conversation, for it had been carried on,
not in the studied pace suitable for foreigners, but clipped and jammed
into a swift colloquial clatter.
“Look at Diccon,” Leopold went on, still keeping away from English.
“He is so surprised, his mouth won’t come shut for a week. And Betty,
she--” and so on until nearly everyone in the company was tolled off.
Sensation! The discovery that the Prince really wanted Cinderella after
all was nothing in comparison. Where did she get it? Had she lived
abroad? No. Had she gone to school? No. Then she must have had tutors.
Ah! There it was. Allen Blynn, by way of silly books, had done the
trick. Marvelous! Hearty congratulations! It was a miracle of pedagogy.
Blynn denied everything; but they put it down to modesty. Needless to
say, from that hour Gorgas was respected by the elder girls and was
brought more into their circle. And from that hour, too, she lost the
major part of her left-handedness in public. She began to move across
the room without striking chairs or sliding ashamed into secluded
corners.
Some of the same dignity of bearing, so natural in the open
out-of-doors, began to appear within doors; her native comedy spirit,
the gift of dramatic caricature, gradually unclosed, to the great
surprise of her elder sister.
VIII
“MY THEORY IS ----”
[Illustration: Mon capitaine, ... mon colonel, ... que me
demandez-vous?]