The house across the street from the Carmody place was suddenly sold.
People were curious and a little anxious. Every one on that block had
been there for a generation or so; there was a sense of permanence about
them all--even the Kings.
"Eastern people," said Mrs. Lorimer. "A mother, rather delicate-looking,
and one son, eighteen or nineteen I should say. He's frail-looking, too,
and he limps a little. I imagine they're very nice. Everything about
them"--her magazine reading had taken her quite reasonably to a front
window the day the newcomers' furniture was uncrated and carried
in--"seems very nice." She hoped, if it developed that they really were
desirable that they would be permanent. Los Angeles was coming to have
such a floating population....
Honor and Jimsy observed the boy from across the street, a slim, modish
person. "Gee," said Jimsy, "it must be fierce to be lame!--to have your
body not--not do what you tell it to! I wonder what he does? He can't do
_anything_, can he?" His eyes were deep with honest pity.
"Oh, I suppose he sort of fills in with other things," Honor conceded.
"I expect, if people can't do the things that count most, they go in for
other things. He seems awfully keen about his two cars."
"They're peaches, both of 'em," said Jimsy without envy.
"And of course he has time to be a wonder at school, if he wants to be."
"Yep. Looks as if he might be a shark at it." He grinned. "Slow on his
feet but fast in the head."
"Muzzie's going to call on his mother, and then we'd better ask him to
supper, hadn't we? He must be horribly lonesome."
"I'll float over and see him," the last King suggested, "and sort of
size him up. Give him the once-over. We don't want to start anything
unless he's O. K. Might as well go now, I guess."
"All right. Come in afterward and tell me what you think of him."
He nodded and swung off across the street. It was an hour before he came
back, glowing. "Gee, Skipper, I'm strong for that kid! Name's Van Meter,
Carter Van Meter. He's got a head on him, that boy! He's been
everywhere and seen everything--three times abroad--Canada, Mexico! You
ought to hear him talk--not a bit up-stagy, no side at all, but
interesting! I asked him for supper, Sunday night. You'll be crazy about
him--all the bunch will!" Thus Jimsy King on the day Carter Van Meter
limped into his life; thus Jimsy King through the years which followed,
worshiping humbly the things he did not have in himself, belittling his
own gifts, enlarging his own lacks, glorifying his friend. He had never
had a deeply intimate boy friend before; the team was his friend, the
squad; Honor had sufficed for a nearer tie. It was to be different, now;
a sharing. She was to resent a little in the beginning, before she, too,
came under the spell of the boy from the East.
Mrs. Lorimer came smiling back from her call. "_Very_ nice," she told
her husband and her daughter, "really charming. And her things are quite
wonderful ... rare rugs ... portraits of ancestors. A widow. Here for
her health, and the boy's health; he's never been strong. All she has in
the world ... wrapped up in him. _Very_ Eastern!"--she laughed at the
memory. "She said, 'And from what part of the East do you come, Mrs.
Lorimer?' When I said I was born here in Los Angeles she almost
_gasped_, and then she flushed and said, 'Oh, really? Is it possible?
But I met some people on shipboard, once--the time before last when I
was crossing--who were natives, and they were _quite_ delightful.'"
"The word 'native' intrigues them," said Stephen, drawing off her long,
limp suede gloves and smoothing them. "I daresay she'll be looking for
war whoops and tomahawks. And if it comes to that, we can furnish the
former, especially Sunday night."
"Muzzie, did you meet the boy?" Honor wanted to know.
"Yes. He came in for tea with us. A beautifully mannered boy. Very much
at ease. We must have him here, Honor."
"Yes, Jimsy's already asked him for Sunday night, Muzzie. Jimsy likes
him."
"Well, he may. He has a something ... I don't know what it is, exactly,
but he will be good for all of you."
"We'll be good for him, too," said her daughter, calmly. "It must be
fearfully dull for him, not knowing any one, and being lame."
He came to supper, a trim young glass of fashion, and it was he, the
stranger, who was entirely at his ease, and the "bunch," the gay,
accustomed bunch, which was a little shy and constrained. Jimsy stood
sponsor for him and Honor was an earnest hostess. He said he enjoyed
himself; certainly he made himself gently agreeable to Mrs. Lorimer, to
the girls. Honor's stepfather observed him with his undying curiosity.
He was a plain boy with a look of past pain in his colorless face, a
shadowed bitterness in his eyes, a droop at the corners of his mouth
when he was not speaking. For all his two motor cars and his rare old
rugs and the portraits of ancestors and his idolized only sonship, life
had clearly withheld from him the things he had wanted most. There was a
baffled imperiousness about him, Stephen decided.
"A clever youngster," he told his wife, watching him from across the
room. "Brains. But I don't like him."
"Stephen! Why not?"
He shook his head. "I don't know yet. But I know. I had a curious sense,
as he came limping into the room to-night, of '_Enter the villain_.'"
"My dear,--that poor, frail boy, with his lovely, gentle manners!"
"I know. It does sound rather piffle. Daresay I'm wrong. The kids will
size him up."
When Carter Van Meter came to tell his hostess good-by, he smiled
winningly. "This has been very jolly, Mrs. Lorimer. It was good of you
to let me come. Mother asked me to say how much she appreciated it.
But"--he hesitated--"May I come in some afternoon when--just you and
Miss Honor are here?" He looked wistful, and frailer at the end of the
evening than he had at the beginning.
"Of course you may, my dear boy!" Mrs. Lorimer gave him the glory of her
special smile. "Come soon!"
He came the next day but one, and as her mother was at a bridge
afternoon it was Honor who entertained him. She had just come home from
High School and she wore a middy blouse and a short skirt and looked
less than her years. "Let's sit in the garden, shan't we?--I hate being
indoors a minute more than I can help!" She led the way across the
green, springy lawn to the little rustic building over which the vivid
Bougainvillæa climbed and swarmed, and he followed at his halted pace.
"Besides, we can see Jimsy from here when he comes by from football
practice, and call him in. I just didn't happen to go to watch practice
to-day, and now"--she smiled at him,--"I'm glad I didn't." There was
something intensely pitiful about this lad to her mothering young heart,
for all his poise and pride.
He waited gravely until she had established herself on a bench before
he sat. "Tell me about this fellow King. Every one seems very keen about
him."
Honor leaned back and took a serge-clad knee between two tanned hands.
"Well, I don't know how to begin! He's--well, he's just Jimsy King,
that's all! But it's more than any other boy in the world."
"You're great friends, aren't you?"
"Jimsy and I? I should say we are! We've known each other ever
since--well, before we could walk or talk! Our nurses used to take us
out together in our buggies. We were born next door--in these two
houses, on the same day. Jimsy's just about an hour older than I am!"
"I have never had many friends," said Carter Van Meter. "I've been
moving about so much, traveling ... other things have interfered." He
never referred, directly or indirectly, to his ill health or his limp.
"Well, you can have all you want now," said Honor, generously. "And
Jimsy likes you!" She bestowed that like a decoration. "Honestly, I
never knew him to take such a fancy to any one before in all his life.
He likes every one, you know,--I mean, he never dislikes anybody, but he
never gets crushes. So, it means something to have him keen about you.
If _he's_ for you, _everybody_ will be for you."
"Why do people like him so?"
"Can't help it," said Honor, briefly. "Even _teachers_. He's not
terribly clever at school, and of course he doesn't have as much time to
study as some do, but the teachers are all keen about him. They know
what he is. I expect that's what counts, don't you? Not what people
have, or do, or know; what they _are_. Why, one time I happened to be in
the Vice-Principal's office about something, and it was a noontime, and
there was a wild rough-house down in the yard. Honestly, you couldn't
hear yourself _think_! The Principal--he was a new man, just come--kept
looking out of the window, and getting more and more nervous, and
finally he said, 'Shouldn't we stop that, Mrs. Dalton?' And she looked
out and laughed and said, 'Jimsy King's in it, and he'll stop it before
we need to notice it!' _That's_ what teachers think of him, and the
boys--I believe they'd cut up into inch pieces for him."
"I suppose it's a good deal on account of his football. He's on the
team, isn't he?" His eyes disdained teams.
"On the team? He _is_ the team! Captain last year and this,--and next!
Wait till you see him play. He's the fastest full back we've ever had,
since anybody can remember. There'll be a game Saturday. We play
Redlands. Will you come, and sit with Stepper and me?"
"Thanks. I don't care very much for----" he stopped, held up by the
growing amaze in her face. "Yes, I'd like very much to go with you and
Mr. Lorimer. I don't care much about watching games where I don't know
the people"--he retrieved and amended his earlier sentence--"but you'll
explain everything to me."
She grinned. "I'm afraid I won't be very nice about talking to you. I
get simply wild, at games. I'm right down there, in it. I've never
gotten over not being a boy! But Jimsy's wonderful about letting me have
as much share in it as I can. You'll hear all sorts of tales about him,
when you come to know people,--plays he's made and games he's won, and
how he never, _never_ loses his head or his temper, no matter what the
other team does. If we should ever have another war, I expect he'd be a
great general." Her face broke into mirth again at a memory. "Once, we
were playing Pomona--imagine a high school playing a college and
_beating_ them!--and somebody was out for a minute, and Jimsy was
standing waiting, with his arms folded across his chest, and he had on
a head guard, and it was very still, and suddenly a girl's voice piped
up--'_Oh, doesn't he look just like Napoleon?_' He's never heard the
last of it; it fusses him awfully. I never knew anybody so modest. I
suppose it's because he's always been the leader, the head of things,
ever since he started kindergarten. He's _used_ to it; it seems just
natural to him."
The new boy shifted his position uneasily.
Honor thought perhaps he was suffering; his face looked pinched. "Shall
we go in the house? Would you be more comf"--she caught herself
up--"perhaps you're not used to being out of doors all the time? Eastern
people find this glaring sun tiresome sometimes."
"It's very nice here. You go to Los Angeles High School, too?" He didn't
care about changing his position but he wanted intensely to change the
subject, even if he had started it by his query. "Odd, isn't it, that
you don't go to a girls' school?"
Honor laughed. "That's what Muzzie thinks. She did want me to go, but I
didn't want to, and Stepper--my stepfather, you know,--stood up for me.
I never liked girls very much when I was little. I do now, of course.
I've two or three girl friends who are _wonders_. I adore them. But I
still like boys best. I suppose"--he saw that her mind came back like a
needle to the pole--"it's on account of Jimsy. Wait till you really know
him! You will be just the same. Honestly, he's the bravest, gamest
person in the world. Once, a couple of years ago, Stepper noticed that
he was limping, and he made him go to see the doctor. The doctor told us
about it afterwards--he's the doctor who took care of our mothers when
we were born. Jimsy came in and said, 'Doc, I've got a kind of a sore
leg.' And the doctor looked at it and said, 'You've got a broken leg,
that's what you've got! Go straight home and I'll come out and put it in
a plaster cast.' You see"--she illustrated by putting the tips of her
two forefingers together--"it was really broken, cracked through, but it
hadn't slipped by. Well, the doctor had to stay and finish his office
hours, and about an hour later he looked up and there was Jimsy, and he
said, 'Say, Doc, would you just as soon set this leg to-morrow? You see,
I've got a date to take Skipper--he always calls me Skipper--to a dance
to-night. I won't dance, but I'll just----' and the doctor just roared
at him and told him to go home that instant, and Jimsy went out, but
when the doctor got to his house he wasn't there, and he had to wait
about half an hour for him, and he was _furious_--he's got a terrible
temper but he's the dearest old thing, really. Pretty soon Jimsy came
wandering in with his arms full of books and games and puzzles and
things he'd got to amuse himself while he was laid up! Of course the
doctor expected him to keep perfectly still in bed, but he found he
could make a sort of a raft of two table extension boards and slide
downstairs to his meals. He had an awful time getting up again, but he
didn't care. The first day he was laid up he had exactly nineteen people
to see him, and he took the bandages off the leg and all the boys and
teachers wrote their autographs and sentiments on the cast. He called it
his Social Register and his Guest Book!" Honor was too happily deep in
her reminiscences to see that her new friend was a little bored.
He got suddenly to his feet. "Yes. He must be an unusual fellow. But I'd
like to hear you sing. Won't you come into the house and sing something
for me?"
"All right," said Honor. "I love to sing, but I haven't studied very
much yet, and I haven't any decent songs. Why doesn't somebody write
some?--Songs _about_ something? Not just maudling along about 'heart'
and 'part' and that kind of stuff! Come on! There's Stepper at the piano
now. He'll play for me."
It was mellow in the long living-room after the brazen afternoon sun
outside, a livable, lovable room. Stephen Lorimer had an open book on
the music rack and he was thumping some rather stirring chords.
"Stepper," said Honor, "here's Carter Van Meter, and he wants me to sing
for him, and I was just saying how I hated all these mushy old songs.
Can't you find me something different?"
"I have," said her stepfather. "I've got the words here and I'm messing
about for some music to go with them."
Honor looked out as she passed the window on her way to the piano. "Wait
a minute! Here's Jimsy! I'll call him!" She sped to the door and hailed
him, and he came swiftly in. "Hello! How was practice?"
"Fair. Burke was better. Tried him on the end. 'Lo, Mr. Lorimer. 'Lo,
Carter!"
"I've got a poem here you'll all like," said Stephen Lorimer. "No, you
needn't shuffle your feet, Jimsy. It's your kind. Sit down, all of you.
I'll read it."
"So long as it hasn't got any 'whate'ers' and yestereves' and
'beauteous,'" the last King grinned. "Shoot!"
"It's an English thing, by Henry Newbolt,--about cricket, but that
doesn't matter. It's the thing itself. I may not have the words
exactly,--I read it over there, and copied it down in my diary, from
memory." He looked at the boys and the girl; Honor was waiting eagerly,
sure of anything he might bring her; Jimsy King, fresh from the sweating
realities of the gridiron, was good-humoredly tolerant; Carter Van Meter
was courteously attentive, with his oddly mature air of social poise. He
began to read, to recite, rather, his eyes on their faces:
There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night,
Ten to make and the match to win;
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in,
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote--
Play up! Play up! and--Play the Game!
Jimsy King, who was lolling on the couch, sat up, his eyes kindling.
"Gee...." he breathed. Honor's cheeks were scarlet and she was breathing
hard and fast. Only the new boy was unmoved, his pale face still pale,
his shadowed eyes calm. Stephen Lorimer kept that picture of them always
in his heart; it was, he came to think, symbol and prophecy. He swung
into the second verse, his voice warming:
The sand of the desert is sodden red;
Red with the wreck of a square that broke;
The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke:
The River of Death has brimmed his banks;
And England's far, and Honor a name,
But the voice of a school boy rallies the ranks--
Play up! Play up! and--Play the Game!
His own voice shook a little on the last line and he was a trifle amused
at his emotionalism. He tried to bring the moment sanely back to the
commonplace. "Corking for a song, Top Step. I'll hammer out some chords
... doesn't need much." He looked again through the strangely charged
atmosphere of the quiet room, at the three big children. Jimsy King was
on his feet, shaken out of the serene insolence of his young stoicism,
his hands opening and shutting, swallowing hard, and Honor, the
boy-girl, Jimsy's sturdy Skipper, was crying, frankly, unashamed,
unaware, the tears welling up out of her wide eyes, rolling down her
bright cheeks. Only Carter Van Meter sat as before, a little withdrawn,
a little aloof, in the shadow.