Some of the caddies were poor as sin and lived in one-room houses with a
neurasthenic cow in the front yard, but Dexter Green's father owned the
second best grocery-store in Black Bear--the best one was "The Hub,"
patronized by the wealthy people from Sherry Island--and Dexter caddied
only for pocket-money.
In the fall when the days became crisp and gray, and the long Minnesota
winter shut down like the white lid of a box, Dexter's skis moved over
the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course. At these times the
country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy--it offended him that
the links should lie in enforced fallowness, haunted by ragged sparrows
for the long season. It was dreary, too, that on the tees where the gay
colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand-boxes
knee-deep in crusted ice. When he crossed the hills the wind blew cold
as misery, and if the sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted up
against the hard dimensionless glare.
In April the winter ceased abruptly. The snow ran down into Black Bear
Lake scarcely tarrying for the early golfers to brave the season with
red and black balls. Without elation, without an interval of moist glory,
the cold was gone.
Dexter knew that there was something dismal about this Northern spring,
just as he knew there was something gorgeous about the fall. Fall made
him clinch his hands and tremble and repeat idiotic sentences to
himself, and make brisk abrupt gestures of command to imaginary
audiences and armies. October filled him with hope which November raised
to a sort of ecstatic triumph, and in this mood the fleeting brilliant
impressions of the summer at Sherry Island were ready grist to his mill.
He became a golf champion and defeated Mr. T. A. Hedrick in a marvellous
match played a hundred times over the fairways of his imagination, a
match each detail of which he changed about untiringly--sometimes he won
with almost laughable ease, sometimes he came up magnificently from
behind. Again, stepping from a Pierce-Arrow automobile, like Mr.
Mortimer Jones, he strolled frigidly into the lounge of the Sherry
Island Golf Club--or perhaps, surrounded by an admiring crowd, he gave
an exhibition of fancy diving from the spring-board of the club raft....
Among those who watched him in open-mouthed wonder was Mr. Mortimer
Jones.
And one day it came to pass that Mr. Jones--himself and not his
ghost--came up to Dexter with tears in his eyes and said that Dexter was
the ---- best caddy in the club, and wouldn't he decide not to quit if
Mr. Jones made it worth his while, because every other ---- caddy in the
club lost one ball a hole for him--regularly----
"No, sir," said Dexter decisively, "I don't want to caddy any more."
Then, after a pause: "I'm too old."
"You're not more than fourteen. Why the devil did you decide just this
morning that you wanted to quit? You promised that next week you'd go
over to the State tournament with me."
"I decided I was too old."
Dexter handed in his "A Class" badge, collected what money was due him
from the caddy master, and walked home to Black Bear Village.
"The best ---- caddy I ever saw," shouted Mr. Mortimer Jones over a
drink that afternoon. "Never lost a ball! Willing! Intelligent! Quiet!
Honest! Grateful!"
The little girl who had done this was eleven--beautifully ugly as little
girls are apt to be who are destined after a few years to be
inexpressibly lovely and bring no end of misery to a great number of
men. The spark, however, was perceptible. There was a general
ungodliness in the way her lips twisted down at the corners when she
smiled, and in the--Heaven help us!--in the almost passionate quality of
her eyes. Vitality is born early in such women. It was utterly in
evidence now, shining through her thin frame in a sort of glow.
She had come eagerly out on to the course at nine o'clock with a white
linen nurse and five small new golf-clubs in a white canvas bag which
the nurse was carrying. When Dexter first saw her she was standing by the
caddy house, rather ill at ease and trying to conceal the fact by
engaging her nurse in an obviously unnatural conversation graced by
startling and irrevelant grimaces from herself.
"Well, it's certainly a nice day, Hilda," Dexter heard her say. She drew
down the corners of her mouth, smiled, and glanced furtively around, her
eyes in transit falling for an instant on Dexter.
Then to the nurse:
"Well, I guess there aren't very many people out here this morning, are
there?"
The smile again--radiant, blatantly artificial--convincing.
"I don't know what we're supposed to do now," said the nurse, looking
nowhere in particular.
"Oh, that's all right. I'll fix it up."
Dexter stood perfectly still, his mouth slightly ajar. He knew that if
he moved forward a step his stare would be in her line of vision--if he
moved backward he would lose his full view of her face. For a moment he
had not realized how young she was. Now he remembered having seen her
several times the year before--in bloomers.
Suddenly, involuntarily, he laughed, a short abrupt laugh--then,
startled by himself, he turned and began to walk quickly away.
"Boy!"
Dexter stopped.
"Boy----"
Beyond question he was addressed. Not only that, but he was treated to
that absurd smile, that preposterous smile--the memory of which at least
a dozen men were to carry into middle age.
"Boy, do you know where the golf teacher is?"
"He's giving a lesson."
"Well, do you know where the caddy-master is?"
"He isn't here yet this morning."
"Oh." For a moment this baffled her. She stood alternately on her right
and left foot.
"We'd like to get a caddy," said the nurse. "Mrs. Mortimer Jones sent us
out to play golf, and we don't know how without we get a caddy."
Here she was stopped by an ominous glance from Miss Jones, followed
immediately by the smile.
"There aren't any caddies here except me," said Dexter to the nurse,
"and I got to stay here in charge until the caddy-master gets here."
"Oh."
Miss Jones and her retinue now withdrew, and at a proper distance from
Dexter became involved in a heated conversation, which was concluded by
Miss Jones taking one of the clubs and hitting it on the ground with
violence. For further emphasis she raised it again and was about to
bring it down smartly upon the nurse's bosom, when the nurse seized the
club and twisted it from her hands.
"You damn little mean old _thing_!" cried Miss Jones wildly.
Another argument ensued. Realizing that the elements of the comedy were
implied in the scene, Dexter several times began to laugh, but each time
restrained the laugh before it reached audibility. He could not resist
the monstrous conviction that the little girl was justified in beating
the nurse.
The situation was resolved by the fortuitous appearance of the
caddy-master, who was appealed to immediately by the nurse.
"Miss Jones is to have a little caddy, and this one says he can't go."
"Mr. McKenna said I was to wait here till you came," said Dexter
quickly.
"Well, he's here now." Miss Jones smiled cheerfully at the caddy-master.
Then she dropped her bag and set off at a haughty mince toward the first
tee.
"Well?" The caddy-master turned to Dexter. "What you standing there like
a dummy for? Go pick up the young lady's clubs."
"I don't think I'll go out to-day," said Dexter.
"You don't----"
"I think I'll quit."
The enormity of his decision frightened him. He was a favorite caddy,
and the thirty dollars a month he earned through the summer were not to
be made elsewhere around the lake. But he had received a strong
emotional shock, and his perturbation required a violent and immediate
outlet.
It is not so simple as that, either. As so frequently would be the case
in the future, Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter
dreams.