“How much for this box, gentlemen?” Sam Tupman begged, from his stand
on a packing case. “Ten cents!” the auctioneer reproached. “I’m ashamed
of you, Jim Lyman. There’s more than ten cents’ worth of butter on the
bread. Twenty-five? That’s better. Don’t insult the young lady who put
up this box. Thirty-five? Come, thirty-five. That’s right, Henshaw. A
fellow with a mouth as large as yours ought to pay thirty-five cents
for looking at a box like this.”
The laughter that rolled up from the village people who had gathered
on the minister’s lawn added to the fun at the grinning country boy’s
expense. The bidding mounted. It soared. A box, tied with flaming
orange, was knocked down to the boy with the large mouth for _sixty
cents_! The minister’s carpet began to assume reality.
From his seat under the trees, Caleb Whitman laughed and enjoyed the
fun with the others. It seemed to him that nothing the city offered
could compare with this little village fête for pure and innocent
enjoyment. The spirit of neighborliness everywhere manifested, the
tingling excitement of the young people in the auction, the hearty
enjoyment the country found in Sam Tupman’s humor, all gave to the
simple entertainment an air, or so the man from the city thought, as
wholesome as the breeze that came in exhilarating puffs from the blue
waters of Ontario. He thought of New York, with its chill indifference
and hard worldliness with profound distaste.
And then from his seat under the bobbing lanterns which he had helped
to suspend from the splendid old maple trees, he turned his eyes again
to Nancy, who sat with the neighbors to whom Aunt Roxana had entrusted
her, persons whose dress and manner proclaimed for them special
distinction in the community. At each successive meeting he had told
himself that Nancy’s beauty and charm had reached their height. But
never before had he seen her with her eyes shining with ecstasy, her
cheeks flying banners of joy, her girlish throat encircled by a coral
necklace, her happy face peeping from beneath a white lace hat, with
a rose tucked beneath the brim. It was plainly Nancy’s gala hat, and
Nancy’s gala day.
The Captain, looking very spruce in his black Sunday suit, his white
collar, dazzlingly polished, scraping his ears, leaned toward his
summer boarder. “The boxes are going fast; you’d better begin bidding
unless you want to go hungry,” he warned.
“I’ve got my eye on one.”
Whitman’s assurance made the Captain chuckle. “Don’t need no looking
after by me,” he said; and he settled back to enjoy the fun of Sam
Tupman’s antics.
The auction was coming to a close. Most of the men present were
balancing generous boxes on their knees, awaiting the signal to open
them, to search for the packers’ names.
Sam Tupman looked at the minister, a fat, short, benevolent little man
of sixty years, in a rusty coat. Then he picked up a box from among the
few left on the table, a box that looked as if it had once contained
five pounds of candy, wrapped neatly in white tissue paper, bound
sedately with seal brown ribbon; but, alas for Aunt Roxana’s decorum,
with a big moss rose thrust coquettishly through the bow.
“How much?” said Sam Tupman, omitting his usual raillery.
The minister murmured: “Twenty-five cents.”
“Fifty,” said Whitman promptly.
The auctioneer hesitated. The minister put on his glasses and looked
his flock over to see whence the voice of the interloper came.
“Fifty-five,” he said at last, with careful deliberation. The Captain
shook with inward laughter. “Go it,” he challenged Whitman admiringly.
“Seventy-five,” said the stranger within the gates.
“Eighty,” said the minister.
“One dollar!” Whitman’s voice rang out.
The auctioneer paused. “Parson,” he cried above the laughter, “if you’d
auctioned as long as I have, you’d know when to quit by the ring in the
other fellow’s voice. That boy ain’t got onto his real wind yet.”
“A dollar ten,” said the minister firmly.
“Two dollars,” from Whitman.
The minister wiped his forehead. “You’re right, Sam,” he called
good-naturedly. “I can’t tire him out; but I gave him a run for his
money.”
The worldly phrase from the guileless little minister caused a rumble
of laughter from his flock, that died only to rise again.
“Well,” sighed Miss Abby, leaning toward Whitman, “there ain’t been
such excitement in Deep Harbor in many a day. I hope you got a good
box. I meant to give you a hint about mine.”
Ten minutes later the tables were spread. The young people as well as
the elderly folk (age far outnumbered youth in the old town) opened the
boxes and found their partners’ names.
Caleb Whitman left his seat with the Luffkins and crossed the lawn.
“Come, Nancy,” he said.
The friends to whom she had been entrusted had wandered away, leaving
her for the moment alone. With an adorable readiness, quite unlike the
giggling reluctance the village girls were feigning, Nancy arose.
“Oh,” she reproached the young man, her lips parting in a smile. “How
did you dare?”
“They told me to bid on a box.” Whitman laughed down into her upturned
face. “If it happened to be yours--” His gesture implied that such
being the case, he was not to blame.
“I did not tell you the color of the ribbon, did I?” She waited
anxiously for his answer, as if to gather assurance for future defense.
“Certainly not,” he affirmed unblushingly, leading her to a seat
between two maple trees.
“But,” Nancy persisted, “how did you know that it was my box, if you
didn’t know the color of my ribbon? You haven’t opened it to find my
name.”
Whitman’s answer was ready. “I knew it by the sign of the rose,” he
said, taking the flower from the box, to pin it on his coat. “It’s your
symbol, Nancy--a moss rose in an old fashioned garden.”
When they were seated on the board seat Nancy opened her box revealing
a loaf of almond cake (made with orange flower wine) and piles of
little sandwiches, tied bewitchingly with cherry colored ribbons.
“I’m sorry for the minister,” the man beside her said, making one
mouthful of a little square of bread and butter, “he’ll miss the cherry
ribbons.”
“He’s never had them,” Nancy replied quickly; and then she blushed.
“Were they--for me, Nancy?”
“For the highest bidder,” said Nancy. Aunt Roxana’s lessons in
discretion had not been in vain. Then she added, anxiously: “Those
sandwiches look very small, some way, for your mouth.”
“They were measured for a rose bud,” he replied, looking straight at
two red lips.
“The minister never said things like that.”
“Perhaps he did not dare.”
“No,” Nancy decided judicially. “I think it was because he was too busy
eating bread and butter. On the way home, though, he sometimes paid me
the compliment of telling me I was a good girl, and a comfort to my
Aunt.”
“On the way home? Has it been his custom to take you home?”
She sighed and nodded.
“He’s not going to do it, to-night. You’re going with me.”
She looked her longing. Then she sighed again. “No, it would never do.”
“Yes,” he pleaded.
She hesitated, catching her breath. “Then we must start early--before
nine,” she decided.
“Well,” he conceded, wondering if the earlier hour would appease Aunt
Roxana’s disapproval.
“What are you going to say to the minister?”
“I’ll trust to inspiration. It’s never hard to persuade a fat man to
sit still. I’ll tell him that the privilege of taking you home goes
with the box.”
He picked up the cover, which had served him for a plate. “Hello,” he
said, “a New York candy box.”
“Yes,” said Nancy. “The old man with gray whiskers, of whom I told you,
sent me the candy. It was a wonderful box. A revelation in candy, after
peppermint sticks in paper bags. I have thought of New York ever since
as a splendid box of bon bons, each layer more wonderful than the last.
Is it like that?”
The city which had seemed so distasteful a moment before, assumed
brighter form with Nancy’s words. He thought suddenly of all the
treasures of art gathered there, of the shops and the play houses,
the ships on the river, the gayety of the avenue; and he began to tell
Nancy of the side of New York that was indeed like a candy box, lined
with paper lace, all ready, should she come there, for the pinch of her
golden tongs.
“And you will come, Nancy?” he pleaded as the shadows lengthened.
“Maybe,” she promised. “Anything seems possible--now.” And then she
asked, quite suddenly, “Didn’t you once mention a man named Radding to
me?”
“Perhaps,” he said, startled.
“Who is he?”
“There are dozens of people of that name in New York. The one I know is
a scholar and a gentleman.”
“What does he do for his living?”
“He writes a little and lives on his income.”
“Ah!” Her sigh was one of relief.
“Do you write, Nancy? I should think you might, with that pretty fancy
of yours.” He waited expectantly, hoping for her confession of the
authorship of the poem.
She shook her head. “No. I feel things, but I don’t draw them, or sing
them, or write them.”
The long northern twilight grew dimmer. Black night set in. Some one
lighted the lanterns, which bobbed from the high branches where Whitman
had strung them, like huge fire flies among the trees. A vast content
with the present, an eager expectancy of the future, flooded his
being. Life was a spring of living water, to which he pressed his lips.
“Come,” said Nancy suddenly. “We must start. I did not know it was so
late. Time had wings, to-night.”
When Whitman begged for the privilege of taking Nancy home the minister
demurred. “You are a stranger to Miss Roxana,” he said.
“I spent all yesterday afternoon with her,” Whitman argued.
“Well,” the minister gave in, “if she says anything, send her to me. If
she never finds it out, let it be on my conscience.” He patted Nancy on
the shoulder and gave his fat little hand to Whitman in farewell. “It
was good of you,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “to bid so generously
this evening in order to help the church.”