ONE DAY, if we saw a woman gowned as Mrs. Montgomery was gowned when she
visited Riverbank, we would laugh her to ridicule, but the toys Peter
Lane whittled that winter are still admired for their design and
execution. There is a collection of them in the rooms of the Riverbank
Historical Society. We laugh, too, when we see photographs of Main
Street as it was when Peter came to town after his winter on Big Tree
Lake, with the mud almost hub deep. That was before the new banks were
built or the brick-paving laid, and Main Street was a ragged, ill-kept
thoroughfare, with none of the city airs it has since donned. But as
Peter stepped out of the First National Bank, and stood for a minute
on the steps in the warm spring sunshine, the street looked like an old
friend, and this was the more odd because it had never looked like a
friend before.
Jim Vandyne had just cashed the checks and money orders Peter had
accumulated during the winter. They were for small amounts--a few
dollars each--and not until the cashier had pushed the pile of crisp
bills under the wicket, mentioning the amount, did happy-go-lucky Peter
realize how much his winter earnings had amounted to.
“Quite a lot of money,” Jim had said. “How would you like to open
an account?” and Peter had opened his first bank account. The warm,
leather-bound bank-book now reposed in his pocket. Peter could feel it
pressing against him, and he could feel the extra bulge the check-book
made in his hip pocket. He felt like a serf raised to knighthood, with
armor protecting him against harm. As he stood there, Mr. Howard, the
bank's president, came briskly down the street. He was a short, chubby
man, and he had always nodded cheerfully to Peter, but now he stopped
and extended his hand.
“How do you do!” he said cheerfully. “Jim Vandyne has been telling me
what you have been doing this winter. Glad to know you are making a go
of it.”
It was not much. The bank president was not a great bank president,
and the bank was not much of a bank--as great banks go--and he had
not, after all, said much, but it made Peter's brown cheeks glow. Bank
presidents do not often stop to shake hands with shanty-boatmen, nor do
they pause to congratulate them, although the bank president may be an
infernal rascal and the shanty-boatman a moral king. But Peter did not
philosophize. He knew that if enough bank presidents shake the hand
of an ex-shanty-boatman the world will consider the shanty-boatman
respectable enough to raise one freckle-faced, kinky-headed little waif
of a boy.
Peter raised his head higher than ever, and he had always held it high.
He was a man, like other men, now. He could, if he wished, build another
shanty-boat. He could _hire_ it built. He could rent a house and put
a carpet on the parlor floor. He could say he was going to Florida and
people would believe him. He could--buy a suit of clothes! A whole,
complete, entire suit, vest and all! It had been years and years since
he could do that, and when he had been able to do it he had always spent
the money otherwise. Now he crossed the street and entered the Riverbank
Clothing Emporium. It gave him a warming feeling of respectability to be
buying clothes, but he did not plunge recklessly. He bought everything
he needed, from socks and shoes to tie and hat, but the shoes were stout
and cheap, and the shirt a woolen one, and the hat a soft felt that
would stand wind and weather.
Mr. Rosenheim himself came and stood by Peter when he was trying on the
shoes.
“My wife was showing me the piece about you in the magazine,” he said.
“I guess you are the first man in Riverbank to get into magazines. We
should be proud of you, Lane.”
“Who, me in a magazine? I guess not.”
“Oh, sure! I read some of it. Some such Art and Crafts magazine, with
photo cuts from them toys you make. Ain't you seen it?”
“Nope! Let me try on a seven and a half B,” he said calmly, but his
pulse quickened.
“Well, I suppose you are used to being puffed up already,” said Mr.
Rosenheim. “I wish I could get such free advertising.”
When Peter looked at himself in the store mirror he was well satisfied.
Mr. Rosenheim nodded his approval.
“That suit looks like it was made for you, Mr. Lane,” he said, and he
did not know what a great truth he was uttering, for Peter, so long in
rags, and the simple, quiet suit seemed well fitted for each other's
company. Peter went out upon the street, and at the first corner he
met--Booge!
He was the same old, frowsy, hairy Booge, and he greeted Peter in the
same deep bass.
“Did you get the papers, to rescue the cheeild?” he asked
melodramatically. “I hid them under the stone at the corner of the lane.
Meet me at midnight! Hush! A stranger approaches!”
There were several strangers approaching, for they were standing on the
corner of the two principal streets. Peter grinned.
“George Rapp brought it down to me,” he said. “I thought you were in for
six months.”
“Sheriff discharged me,” said Booge. “I ate too much. He couldn't figure
a profit, so he kicked me out.”
“You don't mean it!”
“No, teacher excused me at noon so I could go to dancing class,” said
Booge.
“How did you get out?” Peter insisted. “There wasn't room for me and
Briggles in the same jail,” said Booge. “We was always singin' out of
harmony.”
“Was Briggles in jail?”
“They caught the old kazoozer, kazoozer, kazoozer,
They caught the old kazoozer and took him to the jail,”
hummed Booge, “and I got excused so I could go and hunt up Susie: I was
her responsible guardian. Ain't that a joke?”
“What are you going to do now?” asked Peter.
“I dunno!” said Booge thoughtfully. “I ain't made up my mind whether to
run for mayor or buy the op'ry house, but if anybody was to give me a
nickel I'd give up whisky and buy beer. If not, I'll stand around here
'til I _do_ get arrested. The town cop has promised and promised to do
it, but he ain't reliable. I've got so I don't depend on his word no
more.”
Peter took a silver dollar from his pocket and handed it to the tramp,
and Booge started across the street to the nearest saloon without
farewell. Peter took a step after him and then turned back.
“I guess it's what he likes,” he said, “and I couldn't stop him if I
wanted to.”
Peter turned into the Star Restaurant and took a seat at one of the
red-covered tables.
“Bob,” he said, “can you get me up one of them oyster stews of yours?
One of them milk stews, with plenty of oysters and a hunk of butter
thawing out on top. Fix me one. And then I want a chicken--a nice,
fresh, young chicken, killed about day before yesterday--split open and
br'iled right on top of the coals, so the burned smell will come sifting
in before the chicken is ready, and I want it on a hot plate--a plate so
hot I'll holler when I grab it. And I want some of your fried potatoes
in a side dish--hashed browned potatoes, browned almost crisp in the
dish, with bacon chopped up in them. And I want a big cup of coffee with
real cream, even if you have to send out for it. And then, Bob, I want
a whole lemon meringue pie. A whole one, three inches thick and fourteen
inches across. I've been wanting to eat a whole lemon meringue pie ever
since I was fourteen years old, and now I'm going to. _I'm_ going to
have one full, fine, first-class meal and then--”
“Then what?” asked Bob.
“Then I'm going to go and get an alarm-clock that belongs to me.”