I
Aggie has always been in the habit of observing the anniversary of Mr.
Wiggins's death. Aggie has the anniversary habit, anyhow, and her life
is a succession of small feast-days, on which she wears mental crape or
wedding garments--depending on the occasion. Tish and I always remember
these occasions appropriately, sending flowers on the anniversaries of
the passing away of Aggie's parents; grandparents; a niece who died in
birth; her cousin, Sarah Webb, who married a missionary and was
swallowed whole by a large snake,--except her shoes, which the reptile
refused and of which Aggie possesses the right, given her by the
stricken husband; and, of course, Mr. Wiggins.
For Mr. Wiggins Tish and I generally send the same things each
year--Tish a wreath of autumn foliage and I a sheaf of wheat tied with a
lavender ribbon. The program seldom varies. We drive to the cemetery in
the afternoon and Aggie places the sheaf and the wreath on Mr. Wiggins's
last resting-place, after first removing the lavender ribbon, of which
she makes cap bows through the year and an occasional pin-cushion or
fancy-work bag; then home to chicken and waffles, which had been Mr.
Wiggins's favorite meal. In the evening Charlie Sands generally comes in
and we play a rubber or two of bridge.
On the thirtieth anniversary of Mr. Wiggins's falling off a roof and
breaking his neck, Tish was late in arriving, and I found Aggie sitting
alone, dressed in black, with a tissue-paper bundle in her lap. I put my
sheaf on the table and untied my bonnet-strings.
"Where's Tish?" I asked.
"Not here yet."
Something in Aggie's tone made me look at her. She was eyeing the bundle
in her lap.
"I got a paler shade of ribbon this time," I said, seeing she made no
comment on the sheaf. "It's a better color for me if you're going to
make my Christmas present out of it this year again. Where's Tish's
wreath?"
"Here." Aggie pointed dispiritedly to the bundle in her lap and went on
rocking.
"That! That's no wreath."
In reply Aggie lifted the tissue paper and shook out, with hands that
trembled with indignation, a lace-and-linen centerpiece. She held it up
before me and we eyed each other over it. Both of us understood.
"Tish is changed, Lizzie," Aggie said hollowly. "Ask her for bread these
days and she gives you a Cluny-lace fandangle. On mother's anniversary
she sent me a set of doilies; and when Charlie Sands was in the hospital
with appendicitis she took him a pair of pillow shams. It's that Syrian!"
Both of us knew. We had seen Tish's apartment change from a sedate and
spinsterly retreat to a riot of lace covers on the mantel, on the backs
of chairs, on the stands, on the pillows--everywhere. We had watched
her Marseilles bedspreads give way to hem-stitched covers, with bolsters
to match. We had seen Tish go through a cold winter clad in a succession
of sleazy silk kimonos instead of her flannel dressing-gown; terrible
kimonos--green and yellow and red and pink, that looked like fruit
salads and were just as heating.
"It's that dratted Syrian!" cried Aggie--and at that Tish came in. She
stood inside the door and eyed us.
"What about him?" she demanded. "If I choose to take a poor starving
Christian youth and assist him by buying from him what I need--what I
need!--that's my affair, isn't it? Tufik was starving and I took him
in."
"He took you in, all right!" Aggie sniffed. "A great, mustached, dirty,
palavering foreigner, who's probably got a harem at home and no respect
for women!"
Tish glanced at my sheaf and at the centerpiece. She was dressed as she
always dressed on Mr. Wiggins's day--in black; but she had a new lace
collar with a jabot, and we knew where she had got it. She saw our eyes
on it and she had the grace to flush.
"Once for all," she snapped, "I intend to look after this unfortunate
Syrian! If my friends object, I shall be deeply sorry; but, so far as
I care, they may object until they are purple in the face and their
tongues hang out. I've been sending my money to foreign missions long
enough; I'm doing my missionary work at home now."
"He'll marry you!" This from Aggie.
Tish ignored her. "His father is an honored citizen of Beirut, of the
nobility. The family is impoverished, being Christian, and grossly
imposed on by the Turks. Tufik speaks French and English as well as
Mohammedan. They offered him a high government position if he would
desert the Christian faith; but he refused firmly. He came to this
country for religious freedom; at any moment they may come after him and
take him back."
A glint of hope came to me. I made a mental note to write to the mayor,
or whatever they call him over there, and tell him where he could locate
his wandering boy.
"He loves the God of America," said Tish.
"Money!" Aggie jeered.
"And he is so pathetic, so grateful! I told Hannah at noon to-day--that's
what delayed me--to give him his lunch. He was starving; I thought we'd
never fill him. And when it was over, he stooped in the sweetest way,
while she was gathering up the empty dishes, and kissed her hand. It was
touching!"
"Very!" I said dryly. "What did Hannah do?"
"She's a fool! She broke a cup on his head."
Mr. Wiggins's anniversary was not a success. Part of this was due to
Tish, who talked of Tufik steadily--of his youth; of the wonderful
bargains she secured from him; of his belief that this was the land of
opportunity--Aggie sniffed; of his familiarity with the Bible and
Biblical places; of the search the Turks were making for him. The
atmosphere was not cleared by Aggie's taking the Cluny-lace centerpiece
to the cemetery and placing it, with my sheaf, on Mr. Wiggins's grave.
As we got into Tish's machine to go back, Aggie was undeniably peevish.
She caught cold, too, and was sneezing--as she always does when she is
irritated or excited.
"Where to?" asked Tish from the driving-seat, looking straight ahead and
pulling on her gloves. From where we sat we could still see the dot of
white on the grass that was the centerpiece.
"Back to the house," Aggie snapped, "to have some chicken and waffles
and Tufik for dinner!"
Tish drove home in cold silence. As well as we could tell from her back,
she was not so much indignant as she was determined. Thus we do not
believe that she willfully drove over every rut and thank-you-ma'am on
the road, scattering us generously over the tonneau, and finally, when
Aggie, who was the lighter, was tossed against the top and sprained her
neck, eliciting a protest from us. She replied in an abstracted tone,
which showed where her mind was.
"It would be rougher on a camel," she said absently. "Tufik was telling
me the other day--"
Aggie had got her head straight by that time and was holding it with
both hands to avoid jarring. She looked goaded and desperate; and, as
she said afterward, the thing slipped out before she knew she was more
than thinking it.
"Oh, damn Tufik!" she said.
Fortunately at that moment we blew out a tire and apparently Tish did
not hear her. While I was jacking up the car and Tish was getting the
key of the toolbox out of her stocking, Aggie sat sullenly in her place
and watched us.
"I suppose," she gibed, "a camel never blows out a tire!"
"It might," Tish said grimly, "if it heard an oath from the lips of a
middle-aged Sunday-school teacher!"
We ate Mr. Wiggins's anniversary dinner without any great hilarity.
Aggie's neck was very stiff and she had turned in the collar of her
dress and wrapped flannels wrung out of lamp oil round it. When she
wished to address either Tish or myself she held her head rigid and
turned her whole body in her chair; and when she felt a sneeze coming on
she clutched wildly at her head with both hands as if she expected it to
fly off.
Tufik was not mentioned, though twice Tish got as far as Tu-- and then
thought better of it; but her mind was on him and we knew it. She worked
the conversation round to Bible history and triumphantly demanded
whether we knew that Sodom and Gomorrah are towns to-day, and that a
street-car line is contemplated to them from some place or other--it
developed later that she meant Tyre and Sidon. Once she suggested that
Aggie's sideboard needed new linens, but after a look at Aggie's rigid
head she let it go at that.
No one was sorry when, with dinner almost over, and Aggie lifting her
ice-cream spoon straight up in front of her and opening her mouth with
a sort of lockjaw movement, the bell rang. We thought it was Charlie
Sands. It was not. Aggie faced the doorway and I saw her eyes widen.
Tish and I turned.
A boy stood in the doorway--a shrinking, timid, brown-eyed young
Oriental, very dark of skin, very white of teeth, very black of hair--a
slim youth of eighteen, possibly twenty, in a shabby blue suit, broken
shoes, and a celluloid collar. Twisting between nervous brown fingers,
not as clean as they might have been, was a tissue-paper package.
"My friends!" he said, and smiled.
Tish is an extraordinary woman. She did not say a word. She sat still
and let the smile get in its work. Its first effect was on Aggie's neck,
which she forgot. Tufik's timid eyes rested for a moment on Tish and
brightened. Then like a benediction they turned to mine, and came to a
stop on Aggie. He took a step farther into the room.
"My friend's friend are my friend," he said. "America is my friend--this
so great God's country!"
Aggie put down her ice-cream spoon and closed her mouth, which had been
open.
"Come in, Tufik," said Tish; "and I am sure Miss Pilkington would like
you to sit down."
Tufik still stood with his eyes fixed on Aggie, twisting his package.
"My friend has said," he observed--he was quite calm and divinely
trustful--"My friend has said that this is for Miss Pilk a sad day. My
friend is my mother; I have but her and God. Unless--but perhaps I have
two new friend also--no?"
"Of course we are your friends," said Aggie, feeling for the table-bell
with her foot. "We are--aren't we, Lizzie?"
Tufik turned and looked at me wistfully. It came over me then what an
awful thing it must be to be so far from home and knowing nobody, and
having to wear trousers and celluloid collars instead of robes and
turbans, and eat potatoes and fried things instead of olives and figs
and dates, and to be in danger of being taken back and made into a
Mohammedan and having to keep a harem.
"Certainly," I assented. "If you are good we will be your friends."
He flashed a boyish smile at me.
"I am good," he said calmly--"as the angels I am good. I have here a
letter from a priest. I give it to you. Read!"
He got a very dirty envelope from his pocket and brought it round the
table to me. "See!" he said. "The priest says: 'Of all my children Tufik
lies next my heart.'"
He held the letter out to me; but it looked as if it had been copied
from an Egyptian monument and was about as legible as an outbreak of
measles.
"This," he said gently, pointing, "is the priest's blessing. I carry
it ever. It brings me friends." He put the paper away and drew a long
breath; then surveyed us all with shining eyes. "It has brought me you."
We were rather overwhelmed. Aggie's maid having responded to the bell,
Aggie ordered ice cream for Tufik and a chair drawn to the table; but
the chair Tufik refused with a little, smiling bow.
"It is not right that I sit," he said. "I stand in the presence of my
three mothers. But first--I forget--my gift! For the sadness, Miss
Pilk!"
He held out the tissue-paper package and Aggie opened it. Tufik's gift
proved to be a small linen doily, with a Cluny-lace border!
We were gone from that moment--I know it now, looking back. Gone! We
were lost the moment Tufik stood in the doorway, smiling and bowing.
Tish saw us going; and with the calmness of the lost sat there nibbling
cake and watching us through her spectacles--and raised not a hand.
Aggie looked at the doily and Tufik looked at her.
"That's--that's really very nice of you," said Aggie. "I thank you."
Tufik came over and stood beside her.
"I give with my heart," he said shyly. "I have had nobody--in all so
large this country--nobody! And now--I have you!" Aggie saw--but too
late. He bent over and touched his lips to her hands. "The Bible says:
'To him that overcometh I will give the morning star!' I have
overcometh--ah, so much!--the sea; the cold, wet England; the Ellis
Island; the hunger; the aching of one who has no love, no money! And
now--I have the morning star!"
He looked at us all three at once--Charlie Sands said this was
impossible, until he met Tufik. Aggie was fairly palpitant and Tish was
smug, positively smug. As for me, I roused with a start to find myself
sugaring my ice cream.
Charlie Sands was delayed that night. He came in about nine o'clock and
found Tufik telling us about his home and his people and the shepherds
on the hills about Damascus and the olive trees in sunlight. We
half-expected Tufik to adopt Charlie Sands as a father; but he contented
himself with a low Oriental salute, and shortly after he bowed himself
away.
Charlie Sands stood looking after him and smiling to himself. "Pretty
smooth boy, that!" he said.
"Smooth nothing!" Tish snapped, getting the bridge score. "He's a
sad-hearted and lonely boy; and we are going to do the kindest thing--we
are going to help him to help himself."
"Oh, he'll help himself all right!" observed Charlie Sands. "But, since
his people are Christians, I wish you'd tell me how he knows so much
about the inside of a harem!"
Seeing that comment annoyed us, he ceased, and we fell to our bridge
game; but more than once his eye fell on Aggie's doily, and he muttered
something about the Assyrian coming down like a wolf on the fold.