MR. BAXTER TAKES A NAP.
They had all been at the Langs's that afternoon. The third of June
was Florence's fourteenth birthday, and Mrs. Lang had celebrated
the day by giving a little afternoon tea on the broad piazza,
overlooking the grounds. It had been a pretty sight, with the
dainty gowns of the girls, and the active figures of the few boys
who had been favored with invitations to share in the games on the
lawn. The ever-present amateur photographer had thought so too,
apparently, and from his position in the street, he had already
aimed his detective camera at them, when Alan discovered him and
gave the alarm, only just in time to prevent his stolen success.
Polly and Jean walked home with the Hapgoods in the early
twilight, and, refusing Mrs. Hapgood's invitation to go into the
house, the girls settled themselves on the two high-backed seats
at either side of the broad front porch, and gave themselves up to
the luxury of talking over the event of the day.
"It must be fun to be able to have company, and do it up in such
splendid style as Mrs. Lang does," said Jean a little enviously,
as she pulled out the bunch of pink clover she had worn at her
belt.
"It was lovely, wasn't it?" assented Molly. "Mrs. Lang doesn't do
it often, but when she does have a party, it is always perfect."
"After all," said Katharine, "it's all from the outside, somehow.
I don't know whether you understand what I mean, but I know,
myself."
"I'm glad you do, Kit," said her sister disrespectfully; "for it's
certain that nobody else does. Remember that we are young, and
explain yourself a little."
"I did really mean something, Jessie," said Katharine. "With Mrs.
Lang, it seems as if she set the day and gave her orders to the
servants, and that's all there was about it. Of course she
entertains charmingly, and all that; but it makes me feel, all the
time, as if she did it to pay her debts, and not because she likes
to have us there. When we go to--well, to Polly's, for instance,
I. never think of that, for Mrs. Adams always acts as if she
enjoyed us as much as we enjoy being there."
"She does," answered Polly, with conviction. "She says she never
half grew up, for she likes young people now better than she does
those of her own age."
"It must be horrid to have to give parties, whether you want to or
not, just because somebody else has invited you," remarked Molly.
"That's the way they all do in society, though," said Jessie, with
a knowing air.
"Well, if that's society, then. I don't want any of it," said
Polly ungratefully, while she ran her fingers through her hair and
stood it wildly on end. "I just want my friends, and I want them
whenever I feel like it; but I don't care anything about having a
crowd of people round in the way, just because it's fashionable,
when I don't, care a snap for them. If I ever grow up and come
out, as they call it, I'm going to like my friends for themselves,
and not for their clothes and their parties and their good
dinners. I can buy those at a hotel, if I get hungry."
"And when hotels fail, there is always the poorhouse," suggested
Jean. "But, girls, do you ever want to be very, very rich, just
for a little while?"
"I don't think I ever stopped to think much about it," answered
Polly; "but I suppose it would be fun."
"'Tisn't so much that I want more things than I have," said Jean;
"but, not often, only just once in a while, I do so wish I could
go ahead and be real extravagant, spend ever so much money for all
sorts of foolish things, have parties and fine clothes, and travel
everywhere I wanted. I know perfectly well that I shouldn't enjoy
myself half so much as I do now, when I have to work for all I
get; but still, I'd like to try the other, just for a change."
"And then, after a little while, you'd be longing to get back
again," returned Polly. "I don't believe life is all fun, even to
people that are very rich. I never saw anybody yet that I wanted
to change places with."
"Let's all tell what we would do, if we were very rich and could
have just what we wanted," suggested Alan, from the step.
"All right, only do come in under cover, child," said Polly, in a
maternal tone; "or else you'll be so stiff to-morrow that you
can't move." And she tucked up the skirt of her best gown, to make
room for the lad, who obediently settled himself between her and
Katharine.
"Go it, Jean," he said; "you started us to wishing, so it's only
fair you should speak first. What would you do, if you could have
your choice?"
"Study, till I knew everything there was to be known," returned
Jean, without hesitation. "I'd go to college here, and then I'd go
to Europe, to one city after another, and learn all I could in
each."
"You'd be a perfect valley of dry bones, then," commented Polly.
"People that know everything are very stupid."
"I wouldn't be," said Jean. "I'd found colleges with my money, and
go round lecturing to them, till they knew just as much as I did."
"H'm!" said Alan. "What will you do, Poll?" Polly laughed.
"It would be hard to choose, but I think I'd begin by adopting
about twenty small boys. Then, if I had any time left, I'd--I'd--
oh, I think perhaps I'd like to write a book of poems."
"Good for you, Poll! How I envy the boys, only you'd make them all
into doctors. Molly?"
"I would travel, all over the whole world, and down into
Australia," returned Molly. "I'd go to Russia and Spain and China
and the Nile, and stay everywhere just as long as I wanted to."
"Who wouldn't like to do that?" said Jean. "Katharine, what will
you do?"
"I'd have a lovely house somewhere in Europe, Venice, perhaps, or
else Paris, and it should be full of magnificent pictures. And
then I'd have my friends come and stay with me for a year at a
time; and I'd have young artists come and live there, and give
them lessons,--not teach them, you know, but pay for them, to give
them a start, when they couldn't afford it. And when they had
learned to paint and were ready to go home, I'd pay their expenses
for a year, till they were able to support themselves. And then
I'd help poor students through college, and do ever so many things
like that."
"Katharine, you are modest in your plans!" said Molly, laughing.
"How much of an income do you expect to have?"
"I didn't know we were limited," Katharine answered. "I thought we
could have whatever we wished."
"That was the idea," said Alan. "Go on, Jessie; what would you do
if you had all the money in the world?"
"Just what I intend to do now," she replied coolly, "be a doctor."
"What!" And Molly stared at her cousin with wide-open eyes.
"Yes, I think that's what I mean to do," answered Jessie. "I
believe I should rather like it, and if I can tease mamma into
letting me try, I'm coming East again, in a few years, to study."
"Well, you must be in want of something to do," said Molly, "if
you have any idea of patching up broken bones and getting yourself
exposed to small-pox and all sorts of fevers. But go on, Alan;
it's your turn."
"Let's see," said Alan reflectively; "first of all, I'd get over
my rheumatism, and then, for a few years, I'd be the very best
base-ball player in the world. Then, after I was too old for that,
I'd travel round a little while, and then I'd settle down and be--
"
Polly listened breathlessly for the decision.
"Be what?" she asked eagerly.
"An undertaker."
"Oh, Alan, how mean of you!" protested Jessie. "Here we've all
been and told our wishes as truly as we could, and now you are
just making fun of us. That isn't fair."
"Isn't it?" And Alan laughed teasingly. "How do you know I haven't
told truly? But, to be honest, I think I'd go into partnership
with either Polly or you. I'd like to be a first-class doctor, or
else a great author."
"Poems?" inquired Polly sympathetically.
"Poems! No; nor novels either, nor any such trash as that,"
returned the boy scornfully. "I'd write great, long books with
real solid work in them, history, or else some kind of science,
books that wouldn't be forgotten just as soon as they were read,
but ones that would help the world along by making people know
more and more, the more they studied them."
"I wonder if we shall any of us ever get what we want," said Jean
thoughtfully." Jessie stands the best chance."
"You wouldn't say so, if you knew mamma as well as Kit and I do,"
returned Jessie, laughing. "I shan't have an easy time, when I try
to persuade her to let me carry out my plan. She wouldn't be any
more horrified if I wanted to be a farmer and plant my own
potatoes."
"What will Florence be, I wonder," said Polly. "It would have to
be something very pretty and dainty, or it would never suit her."
"Florence? Her future is all cut out," said Jean. "Didn't Mrs.
Hapgood tell it, last Hallowe'en, a devoted husband and a
beautiful home? She'll have everything she can possibly want, and
she'll keep it all in apple pie order, and she and her husband
will do nothing but bill and coo all day long."
"I don't believe it," said Molly, laughing at the sentimental
picture which Jean had called up. "I think Florence has more to
her than all that."
"What more can she want?" asked Katharine. "If she is a perfect
wife in a happy home, there isn't anything much better for any
woman."
"But it's getting dark, and I must go," said Polly, as she rose.
"Come, Jean; mamma will think I am lost. Good night, girls."
In spite of their assurances that they were not at all timid, Alan
insisted on going with the girls; so they stopped to speak to Mrs.
Adams, then walked on together as far as Jean's gate, where they
lingered, talking, for a minute or two.
"Come in now, Alan," said Polly, as they reached her house again;
"it's early, really, and Jerusalem's out there on the piazza, all
alone. You know she always likes to see you."
Alan hesitated for a moment, but the last fading light of the warm
June day was too tempting, and he went in. Mrs. Adams rose from
her piazza chair to meet them, and stepped forward into the faint
light which shone out through the closely drawn shade of the
parlor window.
"Yes, it is pleasant out here," she answered Polly; "but if you
children are going to sit outside, you must have some wraps, for
it is quite cool. Polly dear, just run in to get a shawl to put
on, and bring the afghan to tuck around Alan. It's on the parlor
sofa."
Polly vanished through the open door. When she came back, she was
laughing.
"Why didn't you tell me they were in there, Jerusalem?" she asked,
as she tossed the afghan to Alan, and then settled herself on a
sweet-grass mat at her mother's feet. "Aunt Jane is reading aloud
a report of something or other, and Mr. Baxter looks so bored. He
yawned like a chasm when I went in."
"Perhaps you disturbed him in the middle of a nap," suggested
Alan.
"Maybe I did. I don't blame him for getting sleepy," responded
Polly pityingly. "It all seemed to be about convict labor and
penal servitude and such things. I shouldn't wonder if something
was the matter in Russia."
Then they were silent, watching the lazy shadows from the full
moon creep over the lawn, till there came a footstep on the walk
and a voice called,--
"So you are all making the most of the moonlight, are you?"
"Oh, Papa Adams!" exclaimed Polly joyfully. "Home so early?"
"Yes," answered the doctor, as he dropped into the chair next
Alan; "and I'm going to play all the rest of the evening. How
comes on our future doctor?"
"Doctor!" echoed Polly. "He said to-night that he'd rather be an
undertaker than anything else."
"Why, how's that?" said the doctor, laughing. "It isn't a week
since Polly told me you were going to follow in my footsteps."
"Oh, Polly has doctor on the brain, just now," answered the boy.
"She's started up Jessie on the subject, and they do nothing but
talk of pills and skeletons. To-night we were discussing what we'd
like best to do, and the girls had such wild plans that I thought
I'd bring them down to earth again."
"If you can't make better puns than that, don't try to make any,
Alan," said Polly severely. "But our plans weren't wild a bit; we
only said just what we would do, if we had all the money in the
world."
"And what was the decision," asked the doctor; "cooking and
sewing, or society belles?"
"Neither," Polly was beginning earnestly, when Alan broke in,--
"I'll tell you, Dr. Adams, and you can see for yourself if they
weren't a little extra. Jean was going to know everything; Molly
was going to travel everywhere; Polly was going to found an orphan
asylum in her house, and write poetry, besides; and Katharine
wanted to support poor but honest young men by the dozen. I think
that's all but Jessie. She's going to study medicine."
"Such aspiring young people!" said the doctor. "You'll need all
the treasures of the earth at your disposal, if you have such
magnificent plans. If you are going to undertake so much, then
good-by to bread-making and Bridget. And that reminds me to tell
you, children, Bridget is going home, the last of next week."
"Next week?" said Mrs. Adams. "What is that for? Her year isn't
over."
"No, but she has gained faster than we thought she could, and she
is now almost as well as ever. If she hadn't been taken in time,
it would have been much harder to cure her; but now we think that,
if she is careful, she can go home to her family again. We told
her so to-night, and she was half wild for a moment; but then she
began to cry, because she must leave her 'dear young ladies,' as
she called you."
"Oh, dear, what shall we ever do without her?" sighed Polly. "I
was really getting quite fond of her. Now I'll have to devote
myself to Dicky and the other babies."
"Bridget has improved in your hands," said the doctor. "You girls,
without knowing it, have been doing the best kind of mission work,
and the Bridget who goes home will be a much more attractive
Bridget than the one who came here, for she has learned that there
is something a little beyond her old life of drudgery that she can
hope for and, in the end, gain."
"Hark! What's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Adams abruptly.
There was a sudden commotion in the parlor, the sound of excited
voices, mingled with inarticulate cries; then Aunt Jane called, in
a tone of agony,--
"Isabel! Polly! John! Quick, quick!"
Springing up, the doctor and his wife, followed by Polly and Alan,
ran to the parlor door where they looked in upon a strange scene,
for a full understanding of which it is necessary to go back a
little, to see what had been passing inside the room, while the
others had been talking on the piazza.
For the past two or three months, it had been Mr. Baxter's regular
habit to spend every Wednesday evening with the woman of his
choice, when he either talked of his children and their
peculiarities, or his servants and their vices, or, on the other
hand, Miss Roberts attempted to form his mind, as she called it,
by improving and instructive conversation. Their interviews, it
must be confessed, were never of the nature of a duet. Either Mr.
Baxter prattled about trifles, and Aunt Jane was politely
indifferent; or else Miss Roberts conversed learnedly, and Mr.
Baxter dozed off into little "cat-naps," waked again with an
apologetic start, and immediately assumed a look of owlish wisdom,
as if to convey the idea that he listened to the best advantage
with his eyes shut. Such a beginning, when they spent but one
evening a week together, did not hold out very brilliant prospects
of enlivening domestic intercourse; but the parties most nearly
concerned appeared to be satisfied, so no one else needed to
complain.
On this particular Wednesday evening, Mr. Baxter was unusually
drowsy. His youngest child, he fretfully explained, had been ill
all the night before, and his own rest had been badly broken. But
in spite of this warning. Miss Roberts had taken up from the table
a pamphlet on prison reform, and announced her intention of
reading it aloud. In vain Mr. Baxter looked about for some way of
escape. Seeing none, he seated himself in the darkest corner of
the room, with a lingering hope that his lapses into dreamland
might pass unnoticed. He was not disappointed. In a few moments,
Aunt Jane had become so absorbed in her subject that she read on
and on, quite unconscious of the fact that her guest, from yawning
behind his hand, and nodding now forward, now backward, and now
sideways, had passed on into a quiet slumber, unbroken by dreams
of restless children and hardened criminals.
But Polly's sudden entrance had roused him, and he propped himself
up anew, with a manful resolve to hold his eyes open, or die.
Unfortunately it was by no means so easy for Mr. Baxter to hold
his mouth shut, and yawn followed yawn, wider and still more wide,
until his hand could no longer cover the opening. And yet Miss
Roberts read on endlessly, remorselessly. Suddenly she was
interrupted by Mr. Baxter who sprang up wildly and, with his body
bent forward, his eyes distended and his mouth wide open, began
plunging distractedly about the room, with both hands to his face,
as if in mortal anguish.
"Oh, Solomon! What is it?" And Miss Roberts sprang up, in her
turn.
But Mr. Solomon Baxter only paused to clasp his face more closely
and groan, and then resumed his former antics. Miss Roberts was
seriously alarmed. Had the man suddenly gone mad? Was he dying?
"Solomon! Solomon!" she implored him. "Tell me, only speak to me
and tell me what is the matter!"
"'Y 'ou'," replied Mr. Baxter vehemently, but not very
intelligibly.
"What?" Miss Roberts hurried to his side and, bending, gazed up
into his face which was still turned floorward.
"'Y 'ou'; I 'aw' 'uh' 'y 'ou'," answered Mr. Baxter again, this
time pointing down his throat.
Miss Roberts saw that there was some trouble with his mouth. It
was a relief to find that her lover was of sound mind. From his
broken speech, she was beginning to fear some new, strange form of
paralysis, but his wild lunges about the room relieved those
apprehensions. It was only his mouth, then. She smiled
sympathetically.
"I understand," she said; "it is the toothache. It is very
painful, while it lasts, but I have something that will stop it.
Just shut your mouth and make yourself as comfortable as you can,
and I will get it."
But Mr. Baxter shook his head sadly.
"I 'aw' 'uh' 'ih," he answered.
Then Aunt Jane's courage began to fail.
"Can't shut it! Oh, Solomon, Solomon! What is it?"
"I 'o '_oo_'," he replied testily. Then, clasping his jaw in
both hands, he began to walk the floor again, groaning dismally.
Miss Roberts's tears were flowing. She felt sure that Mr. Baxter's
hours were' numbered, and that she would soon be forced to look on
at his funeral. Could she be a mother to his little ones, thus
doubly bereaved? These thoughts passed in rapid succession through
her brain; then, raising her voice to the utmost, she called for
aid. That done, for the first and only time in the course of her
life, Aunt Jane Roberts, the strong-minded, the firm, sank down on
the sofa and quietly fainted away. This was the state of affairs
which met the doctor's gaze, as he entered the room.
To his practised eye there was no ground for doubt. He recognized
the disease and the remedy. It only needed one pull with his
strong hands, one roar of anguish from Mr. Baxter, and the
dislocated jaw was slipped back into place once more. Then the
doctor turned to help his wife who was trying to restore Aunt Jane
to consciousness. At length she gasped, opened one eye, gasped
again, opened both and faintly whispered,--
"Is he dead? Tell me gently. Was it lock-jaw?"
Then the doctor's professional dignity gave way. Dropping into the
nearest chair, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed again, while
Mr. Baxter grew more and more shamefaced, and Miss Roberts more
and more exasperated at his unseemly merriment. When he could
speak again, he answered,--
"Lockjaw; no. This was all your fault, Jane. You read till the
poor man was so sleepy that he fairly yawned his jaw out of
joint."
And this time the doctor's shout was echoed by his wife and the
two children.