showing that when he found schools for her his business as educational
agent was at an end. Then his university teaching, his studying, his
writings, and the care of his little charges, who could not always go
to expensive schools, all that had absorbed him. Besides, the old group
had broken up of its own accord--one of those accidental, unplanned
things that happen. His year in Germany, too, had made an unlooked for
break. There he ended.
“When you were in Germany,” she spoke with great deliberation, “I wrote
to you. Didn’t you get the letter?”
“Why, yes--to be sure, I did. Of course, I did--eh--Didn’t I answer it?”
“You know you did not.”
He knew, and showed it painfully.
“Why?” she kept to the point.
He couldn’t exactly say; he was always careless; wretched personal
habits he had.
“I am asking you a question. Why did you not answer my letter?”
“Oh, how can I tell you, Gorgas,” he writhed, but she was merciless.
“That’s what I intend to find out. It’s got to be settled right
now--this whole business.”
“Very well,” he concluded. “I’ll try to tell you. Your letter was all
right--”
“No, it wasn’t. It was six, gushing, gloomy pages of homesickness
for you. I had the blues awfully. Nobody around the house attempts
to try to understand me or give me a fair show. You came along with
a whole new world and called me ‘pal’ and let me in, and when you
shipped off without ever giving me a hint that you were going, I was
so flabbergasted I sat down and poured out. I posted it that night--in
the rain--and cried the rest of the night because I had sent it.
But I said, ‘Allen Blynn is the one man on earth who will understand
a lonely child.’... But, it seems you didn’t.... Can’t you realize
the--the--agony of every day that brought--nothing? If you had scolded
me or something, I should have felt all right. But you just--shut up.”
She stared ahead of her in blurred indignation. The little, blood-red
roses on her hat were trembling. He could see that she was striving to
control her excited breathing.
“Little girl,” he spoke kindly, “that was a great blunder of mine. To
think that I hurt you--is almost unbearable.... I thought I understood
children, but, bless my soul!--I don’t know the beginnings. Let me tell
you something. I am quite sure that every time I got hold of a pen
or pencil, even to write so much as a postal card, I thought of your
letter and wondered what I should do. I couldn’t decide. Several times
I planned letters to you--”
“Honest! You really did?” she gasped.
“Yes, indeed. But, you see, I didn’t at all understand your letter.
I’ve received loads of letters from children, but this one--why, child,
it was--oh, now that I understand your ‘blues’ and all that sort of
thing, it’s clear enough. But, you see, this was too--too--”
“Go on,” she spoke determinedly; “it was! I meant it to be!”
He made up his mind to speak plainly to her.
“You were a little child,” he began.
“I wish you wouldn’t forever harp on ‘child.’ I was no child. I was
fifteen years old, and knew exactly what I was about. If I had been a
fifteen-year-old puppy you’d have given me credit for something.”
“That’s just the point--the only point; you were not a puppy, but a
girl-child of fifteen, writing a very sentimental letter to a man of
twenty-five. The rules of the game are very clear, my dear. The man of
twenty-five must not encourage sentiment, or he is a--a--foul thing.
It’s the law of our civilization; and I was not free to break it.”
“‘America! Ze lant of Leeberty!’” she mimicked Bardek softly. “‘You
couldn’t write what you thought.... No, I see that.... You’d have been
ashamed, wouldn’t you?... It is one of t’ t’ings you would die for, eh?
_Wass?_’”
“Absolutely!” he spoke with conviction. “Bless my soul!”
“All right,” she regarded him carefully. “You are forgiven--almost....
You made me so blamed mad, by just letting me slide that way, that I
could have done things to you. Well, that’s all over and I feel better.
I couldn’t quarrel with anybody very long today; this new dress fits
too well; but I just had to have this thing out with you, Allen Blynn,
or--or--” She could not think of an adequate figure of speech.
“Now,” she went on; “topic number--what number is it? Five, I think.
Topic number five. Tell me all about Germany. That’s the last topic
till we reach Haverford. Just go on, and on, and talk and talk, and
I’ll snuggle up in this corner and listen.... Hurry!... Begin!”
She leaned back in the cushion with a rug tucked up and around her as
warm and contented as a sleepy kitten.
He talked of Germany, and world politics, and literature and pedagogy.
When he drooped, she stirred him on.
As they drew near Haverford he asked her a question about the games.
She gave no answer. Propped in her corner, just beside the wrinkles
made where the hood of the carriage is thrown back, she was having a
contented, smiling slumber.
He watched her as she slept, mused on her calms and her storms,
speculated as to what sort of character was emerging. As they drew into
the Club gateway, he touched her gently.
“I have guarded thy couch, fair Titania,” he said; “I, Bottom, the
weaver, have done that thing.”
“Where’s Peaseblossom?” he took her cue quickly.
Blynn jerked his thumb toward the diminutive Mac, who had now begun to
stiffen up and look his smartest before the superior broughams in the
lane about him.
“Peaseblossom in ‘blacks,’” she gurgled. “Oh! oh! That is _too_ funny!”
“Topic number six,” he announced quietly. “I intend to take your advice
about Holden. I’m going.”
“When?”
“October; next month.”
She pondered for a second or two and then nodded a determined head.
“Good boy!” she patted him on the arm. “Bully! Now you’re talking like
a grown-up man.”
XIV
A MORRIS DAY
Only a small gallery followed the tennis tournament. Although there
were some splendid outside entries and the match took on the flavor
of a semi-official eastern championship, the newspapers--according to
Diccon--had not yet made tennis a sport. A magnificent cup, with some
good names already on it, was the trophy; and the finals in singles,
between Morris and Clarke, would decide the year’s holder.
While Mac was engineering a good spot for the carriage, Gorgas
scanned the players’ quarters for signs of Morris. Soon a white
figure--“ducks,” white cap, open-throated shirt--waved in the distance
and began to make toward them.
“Allen Blynn,” Gorgas spoke quietly, “don’t you back-pedal for one
minute on that Holden job.” It was the day of the bicycle. “You’ve
won it according to the rules. You’ve just got to go. I’m mighty glad
you’re thinking sensibly about it. Now, that’s all the time I can
give you--the rest of the day belongs to Edwin Morris. Wish it were
baseball, so we could root for him. Hello, boy, how are you feeling?”
“Never better,” said the boy.
Morris tossed back a lock of hair as he came up smiling. Lithe,
clean-looking suppleness he showed; shy almost; lounging; giving no
sign of superior physical power; that unique creature, a new species,
the American college-athlete.
“You’re going to win, of course,” Gorgas searched his face admiringly.
“The trouble is,” he drawled, “Clarke says he feels fit, too. We’ve
agreed to let loose and give you a show for your penny.”
Blynn inquired, “Forgive me, Edwin, for not knowing who Clarke is. He’s
your friend, the enemy; is he not?”
“Fancy not knowing Clarke, Hudson Clarke!” Gorgas looked at him in
wonderment. “He’s the foxiest tenniser outside of dear old Lun’non.
We’d be lucky to get his scalp, I tell you.”
Her loyalty was immense. She filled Morris with the glow of success,
keyed him up with little whispers of faith, and gave him something to
fight for.
On his white shirt the tiny fraternity brooch made a conspicuous mark.
Gorgas reached over and carefully disengaged the patent fastening and,
with equal care, pinned it upon her own proud new gown. Morris watched
her without speaking. She gave it several little pats to see if it were
secure and then talked into his right ear.
“That’s for good luck.”
“Going to keep it?” he grinned. He knew all about the significance of
wearing a man’s fraternity pin.
“There’s never no telling. Mebbe; if you win.”
“She’s rather savage, don’t you think?” Blynn leaned forward and
rallied her. “Think how all Clarke’s little girls will feel if he
loses.”
“That’s their affair,” she shut her lips. “We’re after that cup,
aren’t we, boy? When we play we go in hard; no quarter; divil take the
hindmost. That’s the only way to play. Slash ’em, knock ’em over, go
for ’em. I just hate the chap I’m playing against--until the game’s
over.”
“Contrariwise?” Morris jested.
“_Sans doute_,” she patted him on the head, “until the game’s over.”
They chatted together like chums, until the call came for the finals.
To Blynn those two young persons seemed suddenly alien; it was his
first sense of moving away from very young life. It comes to some
men in the twenties and to others not until much later. One day you
find yourself a stranger to the prattle about you; it may be you grow
a little testy at its inanities, its silly repetitions and obvious
repartee; or perhaps you try to join in, and find the youngsters
combining to laugh at your clumsiness. Over there, smoking stolidly in
the easy chairs, there is where you belong. You stare and figure out
ages and discover to your consternation that you do belong over there.
Then some old, old, lady to whom you feel like saying, “Yes, ma’am” and
“No, ma’am”--if that was the salutation of your own day--comes burbling
forward to claim you as a contemporary. And with the laughter of the
children still in your ears, and half claiming your attention, you
begin lamely to talk life insurance or the present administration’s
foreign policy.
After Morris had gone, Blynn felt very uncomfortable. He would have
given much to be able to slip quietly out and get at his note-taking
on Scot’s “Discoverie of Witchcraft”; or to have some member of his
“contemporary club” stroll by and take a seat in the carriage. He
didn’t know what to say to this strange young person before him;
especially after he had witnessed the kind of prattle youth carries on
nowadays. (Did he ever talk that way to girls? he wondered. He couldn’t
remember--another sign of distance.)
But, Gorgas was true to her word. The remainder of that day was given
over to Edwin Morris. After all, tennis was her trade; she was looking
on with a craftsman’s eye, catching the meaning of every serve and
return.
The first set was a battle. Both men kept to their agreement to wade
in and give the small crowd an exhibition. Deuce games were frequent.
After 4-3 in favor of Clarke, Morris’ serve evened it to 4-4. By a
squeak it went to 5-4--Clarke had slipped to the ground in trying for
an easy ball--and Morris took his own serve for the set: 6-4.
Gorgas could hardly contain her joy. She applauded with little, rapid
slaps upon her kid gloves and called to Blynn to help with the noise.
Her gloves came ripping off so that she could make her allegiance
heard.
“Oh, that serve!” she chuckled. “It looks, oh, so easy; but it’s a
fooler. He invented it and uses it only when he needs a point. It has
hardly a bounce to it; just skims along the grass. Edwin! Edwin!” she
talked but forebore calling. “We’re here!” When he glanced slowly over,
grinning sheepishly as if he had done something wrong, she tugged at
his fraternity brooch and made as if to wave it.
In the second set Morris maintained the lead until 5-4. It looked like
both sets and the trophy, but Clarke let loose, as if mad, evened the
score and tore through to 7-5 and set.
It still had the appearance of a Morris day. Clarke was evidently
winded and worn. He was strangely pale; the good-natured smile was
rather fixed; but he stood up gamely for the third and final set.
“You’ve got him, boy,” Gorgas murmured, just loud enough for Blynn.
“Steady! Just keep her traveling.... That’s the way! Let him put ’em
out!... Make him work! He’s going down! See him breathe!... That’s the
way! Play safe!... Whoopee! Did you see that ‘Lawford’?” And so on,
straining and pulling with every smack of the ball.
Clarke deliberately gave a game away, evidently to secure a rest. The
score stood 4-2 in favor of Morris. They were changing courts, Morris
with steady steps, Clarke with a drag. They said a few words as they
passed the net. Clarke shook his head and dropped on one knee, ripped
off the top lace of his shoe to adjust a white ankle brace. During the
next game Clarke barely stirred from one spot on the court; naturally,
the score was with Morris at 5-2.
Gorgas stopped her chatter. “Clarke put his ankle out when he slipped,”
she told Blynn.
“How do you know?” Blynn was aware of something strange in the playing.
“He isn’t moving much, but he’s doing rather well, just now.”
“Don’t you _see_?” she went on. “He’s all in. _Look_ how white he
is.... They ought to stop the game. It’s a pity!” She suffered in
sympathy with every swing Clarke made to hold back defeat. “They
oughtn’t to allow it.... Why doesn’t Edwin see he’s not trying for
anything.”
Then followed the absurdest bit of tennis that two really good players
ever put up before spectators. Double faults were common; wide balls;
missed shots that Blynn himself could have handled. Clarke was plainly
given three games. Score 5-5.
Once the men seemed to be disputing. Something that Morris said drove
the smile from Clarke’s face, but not the pallor; and he came back for
a few moments with his old-time form.
“Good work!” Morris called. The score was Clarke’s at 6-5. It began
suddenly to grow dark from a threatening storm.
The men slackened again, each seeming to give way to the other. The
shots were all going to the center of the court. No one seemed to
be trying to get by the other. It was so amateurish that the men
themselves occasionally laughed. Back and forth the ball sailed
peacefully--neither man budged--until, in the nature of things, it
dropped into the net or went out of bounds. Two automatons, fixed
near the back line, with power to lean and swing arms, that was the
picture they presented. Nevertheless, under these absurd conditions,
the men were playing with dogged earnestness. The game was desperately
disputed, Clarke finally winning the set at 7-5, and with it, the
trophy.
“Tiddledywinks!” Gorgas summed up the game. “But glory be!” she turned
a shining face to Blynn. “Wasn’t that the dandy thing to do? I’d not
have spoken to him if he’d won that cup against a lame man. Look at
Clarke. They’re carrying him off. He knows Ed let up. But, really, the
way they played made it perfectly fair. It was anybody’s game. They
might have spun a quarter for it.... And Neddie did so want to win....
He never said so; but I know. This is an awful swell cup, Allen Blynn.
The winner always is somebody for a year, I tell you. Ed worked so hard
to get in shape for this.... It’s a _darn_ shame.... Here! get out and
take a walk and tell me when Ed comes with the tea-things. I’m g-going
to--stay in here a-lone for a-while.... Get out! I tell you.... Get
out!”
While Blynn drew up the carriage hood as a precaution against the
coming shower, he could hear her quietly having her disappointment
out in little diminishing sobs. He looked at the sky; both storms
threatened to be over soon.
Sprinkles of rain and Edwin with hot buttered muffins and a tray full
of cups appeared at the same time.
“There’s plenty of tea and things,” he called merrily. “Everybody’s
clearing out on account of the shower.... Wait till I gather in a few
more hot muffins.”
Gorgas’ eyes followed him. He did not miss that; nor the whispered,
“Fine work, old chap; we saw what you did.” But, characteristically, he
said nothing about the game or its outcome.
“Good sport, Clarke,” Morris said later, the nearest he came to
discussing it. “Must have been ready to flop.... Cleaned me up in that
second set; with a cracked ankle, too. Only thing to do--bring it on
the level as near as possible. Seems a shame. Clarke didn’t want to win
that way. Neither of us did.”
During the brief shower, Gorgas mothered him, tucked the rug about him,
fed him muffins, and decided just the proper color of tea for a hero.
And then she insisted that he drive back with them.
As Blynn thought of the spectacle of those two youngsters picnicking
together, facing him all the way home, and talking their private
jargon, he decided for the seat beside Mac.
“Good work, Professor,” Morris laughed. “We don’t like to hurry you
off, _but_--”
The children seemed carried away by some unguessable joke.
“What’s the matter?” Blynn beamed down on them benignly. “Is my tie
jumping the track in back?” That was one of his constant fears. His
right hand explored the neck.
“Oh, your _back’s_ all right,” Morris could hardly hold his joy at
Blynn’s obtuseness. “_Back’s_ fine!” Then he began to chant a college
song of the hour, keeping time by rapid pats on his knees.
“We were yachting and the chaperone
Was blind and deaf and dumb,
Why, she couldn’t hear the thump and crash
Of cymbal and of drum,
When we shot off three salutes
For the captain of the fleet
She remarked, ‘Oh hear the dicky birdie!
Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!’”
Blynn found Mac a contemporary. They talked of England’s treatment of
Ireland, of the causes of immigration and what the world was coming
to, anyway. It was good talk, grown-man’s fodder; while, back of them,
the youngsters, tucked up in a rug, sang songs, comic and sentimental,
flashed nonsense back and forth, recited absurd verse, and even
hallooed to passersby. Bless our soul! Did we ever go through that
stage? Perhaps. Then praise be to memory for forgetting all about it!
Twilight found them ambling along the Wissahickon drive. In the
woodland it was almost dark.
“This ’ere Bardek,” Mac shook his head, “’e’s a funny feller.”
“You’ve come to know him pretty well, I suppose, Mac,” prodded Blynn.
“Ye-es,” Mac busied himself holding in the horses while they passed a
returning “century run” of bicycles, each one with a different kind
of bell and a different light. “Plagued bikes!--jes’ clutter up the
road. No pleasure drivin’ no more.” After the main body had passed, the
stragglers were easy to avoid. “Oh, he’s all right--I guess, but--well,
he talks a lot, now; don’t he?”
“His talk is rich,” said Blynn. “It has the charm of straight thinking,
unbiased thinking. He’s travelled a great deal and is naturally
observant. I don’t always agree with him, but I like his talk.”
“Do y’ understan’ all he’s drivin’ at?” Mac seemed incredulous of
anyone doing that. “An’ d’ y’ think he understan’s it ’isself?”
Without waiting for an answer to his question, Mac went on:
“Now, I don’t say I don’t like him, ’cause I do. He stands by Miss
Gorgas, as if she might be his own daughter. That’s all right. But--”
Mac glanced back furtively--“he gives me a lot o’ talk about marriage,
which, as bein’ a respectable marri’d man, m’self, I’m not takin’ no
stock in. Wimmen may be one thing, and wimmen may be another; but
marri’d is marri’d--that’s my way o’ thinkin’. It’s the way I was
brung up and I sticks to it. He’s got migh-ty funny notions about
marriage--migh-ty funny. It’s my opinion, and it’s me wife’s opinion,
that he ain’t never marri’d to th’t little woman in the glen. Mind,
I’m not asayin’ it is nor it taint so. All that I know is ’e don’t
believe much in marriage. Dangerous character, I call ’im; but, I do
like to have ’im aroun’.... Why, he don’t believe in property, nor
money, nor the church nor nothin’. He says he thinks God is interested
in gnats and horseflies! Think o’ that, now!... I was pullin’ up weeds
in the garden once, and he looked at me and laughed. ‘Why you change
all God’s plans for, you ol’ Mac?’ he sez. ‘Takes a lot o’ time to make
nice clean weed. You don’t like the way the Lord made the earth, eh?
In six day,’ he sez, ‘the Lord created heaven and earth and all that
therein is, and ol’ Mac he spend all his life pullin’ it up and makin’
it better. An’ w’at you grow?’ he sez. ‘Ugh! tomat! ugh! Gott,’ he sez,
‘spoil ni-ce fre-sh weed for ol’ tomat! ugh!’ and he makes faces and
waves ’is hands.... Now, w’at you agoin’ to do with a feller like that?”
“Don’t do anything,” laughed Blynn. “Just enjoy him.”
“An’ he’s a anarchist, too,” Mac’s head shook very dolefully at that.
“Sez he is, ’imself. Sez he’s as much anarchist as anything. That’s
purt-ty bad, Mr. Blynn. Herr Most and all them Chicago fellers! Um! An’
y’ can’t help likin’ ’im! I’d do almost anything for Bardek--think o’
that, now!--most anything--I hev already lied for him!--think o’ that,
now, him as good as an anarchist and me a respectable marri’d man!”
Out of the dark of Cresheim road came a sonorous voice. It was far off,
moving toward them. The song was evidently improvised, both words and
music. The refrain, which had been more carefully worked up, came clear
across the night.
“Oh, boards and plaster!
Boards and plaster!
Nail me in the w’ite-wash house.
_La porte fermée_
Good air, _adië_
I live like mouse,
I live like cows.”
(“Cows” rhymed perfectly with “house.”)
The singer sighted the dull lamps of the carriage and shouted a mighty
“Whoo-ee!” which was answered quickly by Gorgas.
“I haf moved from one t’ousand B. C. straight--plumpf!--into the
nineteen century.” Bardek bobbed up before them, but Bardek with waving
mustachio gone, Bardek shaved and hair-cutted, Bardek in new soft
hat, rolling low collar and a roomy new suit of clothes! He was quite
resplendent and stunning, but outwardly a brand new Bardek.
“_Presto!_ I jump into respectables,” he bowed. “My family is moved.
They have all said the prayers and skipped to sleep. Ah! Ol’ Mac, you
are no more to be the on’y respectable married man in all America.”
With laughter they helped him into the carriage.
“I give my wife and kiddies one gran’ scare. They t’ink I am some
strange feller, till I talk--ah! Who talk like Bardek! In six languages
I prove myself. So! I gif up liberty an’ become American slave. In
America all men are slave to women and children. _Freiheit, adië!_”
Questions brought out the fact that he had taken possession of
the white cottage, moved his family in--to the great joy of the
children--and had marched off to the nearest barber and then to the
nearest clothing store.
“I say to the barber, ‘Make me like American!’ He say, ‘It cost you
much--one-half dollar!’ I say, ‘Here is one _whole_ dollar. This is
a big job; don’t do it _half_!’ Then he clip, clip, clip, but I say
nothings. ‘Americans wear the “clean face,”’ he stop and say. I say,
‘I _talk_ vairy well myself; _do_!’ I t’ink with ‘clean face’ he means
wash it; but hoh! he mean ‘cut it off!’ So I learn some new English and
look like a fat, little, stupid priest, eh, Mac? We go to mass, Sunday,
eh, ol’ Mac? But not confession! _Ach, du lieber Gott!_ When I tell all
my little sins it would be Sunday again! How you like me, eh?”
It was hard to get used to the new Bardek; the vagabond had made way
for a distinguished foreigner. They discovered, in looking him over,
that it was the sweeping mustachio which gave him the appearance of
desperado. The broad forehead, the deep eyes, the great nose, the
laughing lips and the huge chin were well worth exposing. It was
like the transformation wrought when campers come out of the woods,
quite undistinguishable from the native guides, and, after one hour’s
refurbishing and barbering, become gentlemen. There would be no doubt,
thought Blynn, of a welcome for Bardek at the Leverings.