For many days Max observed Walter Buckman closely but saw nothing
suspicious except that he avoided meeting either Max or Sydney whenever
possible.
Weeks passed. The trees were budding and the garden borders were yellow
with crocuses and daffodils. And with the spring came to Mrs. Schmitz, as
to most women, the fervor of house-cleaning. She did this as everything
else, with vigor and dispatch.
“Come mit me, Seedney; you have to move,” she said breezily as she pushed
back from the early breakfast table one Saturday morning.
Sydney looked up apprehensively.
“Have no fear,” she began smilingly, yet her face saddened a little.
“Poor boy! You have so often to move in your life you are afraid of the
word, _nicht wahr_? I send you not away. Think not so.”
Sydney’s face cleared and he followed her upstairs.
“It iss here you will stay.” She stopped at the open door of a well
furnished chamber, the second finest of the six sleeping rooms.
“Why? I am perfectly satisfied with my own place.”
“This iss your own place now.”
“But it is even finer than Max’s.”
She looked at him keenly for a moment and dropped into a chair. “Here by
me sit; I speak mit you of something important.” For a little she was
silent, and he knew she was striving to find words in the troublesome
English that would correctly voice her thought.
“I wonder if you shall understand what I am now to say? When you came
to me you had not much luxury seen; nicht wahr? Iss it not so?” she
translated quickly.
Sydney smiled. “Oh, surely! A warm dry-goods box to sleep in sometimes, a
cheap boarding house here in this city, and--” he passed his hand across
his eyes--“and the time I spent with Billy Bennett at his cousin’s camp;
that was real luxury.”
Mrs. Schmitz nodded understandingly. “But you have one time a home, a
house, a mother?”
“Yes; but I hardly remember my mother. After she died pa wasn’t much on
the housekeeping, and we generally slept in a room somewheres and ate
round.”
“Not square?” Her eyes twinkled, for she had no intention, as Sydney
could see, that the conversation should be a sad one.
“Yes, round the square--at restaurants,” he bandied.
“So? I think that. Now when you came here by me I gave you my poorest
room. I say to myself, this is for three times because. One because, he
iss not used to good things; he will feel not so strange in a poor but
comfortable room. Second because, I will see first how he treats mine
furniture. If he iss mitout care for it when it iss old, he will not be
goot to it when it iss new. Ant third because, I will see if--if first he
likes me.” She hesitated and averted her face. When she resumed her tone
was apologetic, almost diffident. “An old woman who all alone lives gets
pretty lonesome, seeing only people mit business. I think a goot boy will
be company.”
Sydney could never have told what made him do it; he was crushed with
shame the moment it was over. With a quick gesture he reached out, caught
up her fat, work-worn hand, and kissed her bare arm.
Except Mrs. Bennett’s one motherly welcome, he had not given or received
a kiss since his mother’s death; but in that illuminating instant he knew
it was the shadowy memory of her caresses that made him understand Mrs.
Schmitz’s loneliness; and a great hunger for affection that had been
growing all his forlorn life broke forth in that mute kiss.
“Seedney!” She drew his head to her and kissed him softly on the cheek.
“We’ll be friends--always friends. _Nicht wahr?_”
There was no excess of sentiment in her quiet tone; and in the kiss
even less of the passion of the mother than his had held of the passion
of a son. The words were rather the pledge of a great friendliness; a
friendliness that would outlast every trial. It was a solemn moment to
Sydney; he felt as if an angel had been near.
“So now my three times because comes right, ant you take this room,” she
declared.
“But it is too fine for me.”
“No. Nothing I have iss too fine for you. I want you to feel all the time
that the whole world cannot give you too fine a thing. You are a man.
God makes you. In his image he makes you. The best cannot be too good
if--_if_ you feel always you are a child of the Divine.”
A new light came into Sydney’s mind; the light that breaks in any soul
when first it realizes its divinity, its infinity. She had awakened
Sydney.
“Where does it tell that? In the Bible?”
“Yes. Ant your own soul tells you if you listen right. I will show you
also where to read. But not now--to-morrow. Today we work.”
More she said as they moved Sydney’s possessions, partly in answer to his
wondering questions, but more directly from her store of wisdom.
“_Du sollst deinen Naechsten lieben als dich selbst_,” she said musingly
after a pause and did not know she was speaking in German till she saw
Sydney’s look of perplexity. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,”
she translated; “but if you think yourself a poor, mean creature, it iss
not much goot to love somebody like yourself.”
“I never thought of it in that way,” Sydney observed.
“One thing I tell you--watch Max. Copy him in manner; he iss a
gentleman. Also his father, though he iss a hard man.”
“Ant also he loves Max but he shows it not right. The mutter--Ach, he has
no mother!” She sighed and hurried off to the next room.
In a moment she was back again, a little excitement in her manner. “Not
one word shall you say to Max about this. He knows not that I know.”
“You have seen--written to his father then?” Sydney hazarded.
Her smile was inscrutable. “Not any of those things. Max tells it all to
me himself; not mit words--he never knows that he tells. I know. But you
ant I speak not. _Nicht wahr?_”
Sydney assented and she continued.
“I wish you should speak German mit Max ant me. I shall not make the
mistakes in German. I speak good Court German. It will later make--what
you say? credit for you in the university.”
“Does Max speak it correctly?”
“Surely. Beautiful German. Also you shall spend more time at the music.
You shall learn the piano. I will teach you.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Schmitz,” he objected; “it takes too much time. I shall
never be a pianist. I care only to sing.”
“Of course you will not be a pianist. For that you begin as soon as you
can walk. But there be times when you must play your own accompaniment
mebbe, or refuse to sing. To refuse iss not goot. Also playing a little
helps to appear better in company.”
“But you have too much to do. You are tired--”
“Listen, goot boy! You help me more than you know. You make four eyes
to watch mine business. Things this year go goot. I shall soon keep one
cook. Then I have much time.”
Sydney was truly glad, and showed his feeling; though he could not
express it as Max did when told of the impending change for the benefit
of the household.
“Good! That’s right. It’s distressing to see her hands so stiffened with
hard work, when they should be kept soft and supple for the piano. Such a
woman drudging at man’s work, too! I hate it for her!”
Sydney recognized that Max’s understanding of Mrs. Schmitz was far
more discriminating than his own, and the fact made him feel young and
ignorant. But he did not let this increase his jealousy. He believed he
had pretty well downed that meanness.
Max, never dreaming of the sentiment he had aroused, unconsciously made
it harder for Sydney by his boyish chaffing, or by his excursions with
Mrs. Schmitz into the world of books and music where Sydney could not go.
Yet this was the best thing that could have happened to Sydney. He began
to read as never before, spurred by his envy. Not tasks set by a teacher
nor for amusement; but for the sake of what he should find locked in
books. He tried hard to see the charm in the classics from which Max with
shining eyes quoted glibly. Many times he read things Max recommended,
read doggedly till at last the stately rhythm caught his ear, and the
meaningless words thrilled him.
The day before Bess’s party Mrs. Schmitz surprised the boys with new
suits, shoes, ties, and gloves, everything complete.
Max drew the soft handkerchief through his fingers caressingly. “What a
satisfaction! Real linen once more.”
Sydney was pleased with his clothes but he did not know linen from
cotton, nor the value of knowing. Yet when both boys were dressed and
parading in front of their delighted house-mother, Sydney was fully as
grateful, as much filled with a comfortable sense of being well dressed
as was Max. And neither of them enjoyed their finery so much as the one
who gave it to them.
The party was a success. Bess was a cordial, unaffected hostess; and her
father and mother doubled her welcome because they were able to be young
with young people.
Ida Jones was there. Any girl or woman would have known that her simple
gown of rich creamy color cost little; a dressmaker would have known it
was homemade, yet to Sydney it looked gorgeous; and the rose she wore in
her hair, one that Bess begged to pin on after Ida arrived, held in its
deep heart all the rich reddish yellows and yellow browns of her hair.
She looked so “dressed up,” so young lady-like, that Sydney was afraid
of her; and with a hurried nod, passed her and stood aloof with one or
two other young chaps, wearing their first evening clothes, cold with
nervousness, thinking every eye upon them.
Bess spied them and came over, speaking to Sydney first. “Miss Jones
will be your partner for the evening. You must see that she has a good
time. May I depend on you, Mr. Bremmer?”
She was more than ever the Queen of Sheba tonight, a large, richly
colored brunette with the mystery of the East looking from her dark eyes,
but the strength and fearless generosity of the West heartening through
all her cheery speech. Her dress of some soft, oriental stuff, simply
made and worn with no ornament save a strand of curiously wrought eastern
beads, emphasized and distinguished her from the over-dressed girls who
were in the majority.
She, too, gave Sydney a shiver of strangeness. He did not notice that the
young men also looked “different,” wore their “company” manners; and the
“Mr. Bremmer” frightened him.
“I--I’ll try. What--how--you know--Say! This is awfully--”
“Awfully sudden? Why Mumps! I thought you could say something more
original; excruciatingly precipitant, or something like that. Go on, and
talk to her. Talk shop if you can’t think of anything else. Or tell her
how dandy she looks. She made that little frock herself. Isn’t she a--a
peach?”
That bit of slang with the familiar name helped Sydney to “break
through,” as he knew she intended; for none better than Bess understood
the sort of good breeding that fits the rule to the situation.
As he turned back he met May Nell Smith. She was almost grown, tall
and lady-like; yet she had the same sun-touched waving hair, the same
blue eyes and mystic, ethereal spirit looking out from them, that he
remembered when he first met her, a delicate little girl in the big car,
taking him and Billy on their first drive over the City of Green Hills.
She greeted him warmly, a greeting that carried assurance of good will,
faith; a silent pledge of her trust that all felt who came near her. No
one met May Nell without determining to be at least a little different.
Not dreaming that she did it, she aroused everyone to his best. And
Sydney left her determined to bear his part for the evening so well that
Bess should be pleased with him.
When he found Ida it was with an added respect for capability, as he
looked with more discriminating eyes at the pretty gown. He admired her
quiet good manners as she modestly, yet without shyness, met the many
strangers of the senior class, a formidable ordeal for an under-class
girl.
Still under all her sedateness Ida was shy too. A fellow feeling drew
the two together, and they entertained each other with the exchanges
of personal experience inevitable when young people meet, each looking
eagerly out upon life to squeeze it dry of its fascinating mysteries.
When dancing was called, Sydney, who did not dance, started to find her
partners. But she detained him, saying she would rather talk. However,
Sydney was suddenly brave, and, proud to be considered of consequence by
so attractive a girl, manlike, insisted. He must show her off. At least
she must dance with his very best friend, Billy; and Max was “awfully pat
on dancing”; she must give him one.
She acquiesced; but sat out other dances with Sydney; and when dancing
was halted for singing, and Sydney had to go to the piano, he was
astonished and sorry to find the evening two-thirds gone.
The quartette, accompanied by the three instruments, did well. The
audience voted the violin an “immense” addition. After the prepared
numbers they sang college songs, all joining; and when Max introduced two
or three songs new to them, playing odd, catchy little accompaniments,
sometimes whistling, sometimes singing in a funny high voice, half
tenor, half soprano in quality, they cheered him boisterously.
Then they asked for something more ambitious from the violin.
“I haven’t any music,” Max demurred.
“The Queen has all the music ever printed,” Billy exaggerated gayly,
adding as he caught her scowl, “Miss Carter, alias Queen of Sheba.”
“I’m sure you’ll find something, Mr. Ball,” she urged.
“Here! Look it over!” Billy called, and with the familiarity of long
tried friendship threw open the door of the cabinet.
“Here’s something I know,” Max said presently. “Who will play the
accompaniment?” He looked around expectantly, trying to keep doubt out of
his eyes; he was fastidious about that.
“Bess can play for you,” Billy volunteered.
“I’m afraid I can’t please you, but I’ll try if you wish.”
Bess and Max, belonging to the small clan of the really courteous, made
no more excuses, but began at once a familiar number from one of the
operas, Max standing so that he faced Bess partly and could watch her in
the violin pauses.
At first he played tamely, a little hesitatingly; but he soon saw that
Bess followed with fine discretion and sympathy, and he threw himself
into the work with entire forgetfulness of everything else.
Sydney, relieved from the duty of entertaining, watched Bess’s flying
fingers; saw her intent look while the violin took up the theme alone;
and Max’s eager, rapt gaze upon her during his rests--the look of an
artist when he has discovered another.
Without demur they responded to an encore, and after that supper was
announced. Later there was a little more dancing and a closing song.
Sydney, standing near, heard Bess invite Max to come often with his
violin and let her have the honor of learning his accompaniments in a
way that might exactly please him.
“It’s what I’ve been hoping for every minute since you first touched the
keys this evening,” Max returned with an ardent look. Sydney could not
understand that it was the look of the musician rather than of the man.
Bess blushed at the look and still more at Max’s polished manner, so
different from the bluff, frank ways of her comrades. It was more
grown-up, with an almost foreign air of reserve, yet conveying a subtle
flattery; and Sydney looking on felt anger rising in his heart.
Here was one, scarcely his senior, dropped into their circle by a
sinister incident, coming from no one knew where, destined no one knew
where, handsome, gallant, gifted, aided by the gods themselves it seemed
to tongue-tied Sydney, in one evening walking into an intimacy with
Bess that he, Sydney, might wish for till doomsday and never dream of
achieving.
Like some country booby, his mouth frozen open in astonishment, he sulked
by the newel till Ida, coming in her wraps, reminded him of duty and
courtesy. With difficulty he roused himself to a proper good-by to Doctor
and Mrs. Carter; but when he came to Bess he could trust himself for no
more than the words, “Thank you. Good night.”
He was so silent that Ida wondered if she had said anything to offend
him. But her own small triumph, the brilliant scene, the comfort of
knowing herself appropriately gowned, the pleasure of meeting on an equal
footing those who had passed her indifferently each day, and best of all,
the knowledge unwittingly accorded by admiring eyes that she was at least
not unbeautiful--all this thrilled her, loosed her reticent tongue, and
kept her talking gayly till they arrived at her home.
“Walter Buckman is dreadfully chagrined at receiving no invitation,”
she said at her door. “Did you know some of the Fussers were going to
boycott Miss Carter on account of it?”
“Boycott Miss Carter!” Sydney echoed angrily. “Boycott! That means
cutting out Miss Smith, Reg Steele, Hec Price, and the quartette. What
will there be left of the senior class to boycott after that?”
“Nothing,” Ida laughed happily. “They are the cream; after that only
riffraff like--like me; and I’m only a girl junior.” Again her soft laugh
rippled out: “I’ve had the best time I ever had in my life, and I thank
you for it.”
“Thank Miss Carter.”
“I do. But she would never have heard of me except for you. Good-by.”
It was a mile further to the nursery but Sydney walked. He would not take
a car--face people. He wanted to arrive after Max, creep to his room, and
have it out with himself.
But Max, too, had walked, wishing to be alone under the stars. And they
arrived in their street at the same time.
Max was elated. His every step betrayed it. He strode along as if shod
with springs, and his voice thrilled with a new note. “Isn’t she great?”
“Who? Miss Smith?” Sydney knew Max did not mean May Nell.
“No, no. She’s lovely to look at and I guess lovely to know; I didn’t
notice her much. It’s Miss Carter I mean. There’s a real musician.”
“Is that all you think she is? She’s much more than that,” Sydney
defended.
“All! All? To be a real musician is to have tasted divine fire.”
“All the same, I think it’s no compliment to a girl to think only of what
she can do,” Sydney persisted with some temper.
“Sydney, you don’t understand. A musician, a real one, doesn’t _do_
things musical; he _is_ them. Hundreds of girls strum _on_ the piano.
The rare one puts her soul into it and draws forth the angel of harmony
that civilizes us.”
Sydney knew this was a high tribute, but with narrow, snap judgment
decided it was selfish.
Max talked on, and on, more to himself than to his unwilling listener,
but roused at last to Sydney’s silence. “I guess you don’t wish me to
play with Miss Carter. Is that it? Do you care so much?”
How could Sydney know that it was the intuition belonging to his
temperament that enabled Max to read his heart? Angry, hurt, jealous,
he did what the awkward, blundering boy so often does, denied himself,
belied himself. “I? I have nothing to say about it. Miss Carter is
nothing to me. I’ve known her some time, that’s all. Her folks are kind
to me, too.”
“Then it’s all right?”
“Of course it is.”
“Good!” Max responded; and they entered the house.
On the hall table lay a fat-looking, pretentious letter for Max.
It was an invitation to him to join the Fussers Club. Reed Hathaway
begged the honor of presenting Mr. Ball’s name, and hoped for prompt
permission to do so.
Max read it twice and handed it to Sydney with no comment.
“Well, wouldn’t that flitter you!” he exclaimed, holding the big sheet
out far and up near, as if thus shifting it might cause some hidden
meaning to leap from the few words.
“I’ve been in school only a few weeks; isn’t it pretty early to invite me
into that club of exclusives?”
“No. They want to be styled good dressers and successful haughties. You
could wear rags better than some of them can wear the glad goods; and
your face, manner, and violin have done the rest.”
“Yet--Reed Hathaway--he’s Buckman’s best friend; he must know of that
street-car incident. What does it mean?”
“I pass it up. What do you think?”
“It’s the riddle of the Sphinx to me.”
“Sleep on it,” Sydney sagely advised; and they separated.