CHAPTER V
"GENTLE ANNIE"
Wallie had told himself emphatically that he would never speak again toHelene Spenceley. That would be an easy matter since she had glared athim, when they had passed as she was going in for breakfast, in a waythat would have made him afraid to speak even if he had intended to. Torefrain from thinking of her was something different.
He sat on a rustic bench on The Colonial lawn watching the silly robinsand wondering why she had called him "Gentle Annie." It was clear enoughthat nothing flattering was intended, but what did she mean by it? Therewas no reason that he could see for her to fly at him--quite thecontrary. He had been very generous and gentlemanly, it seemed to him,in congratulating Pinkey when it was due to them that he, Wallie, wasthrown into the petunias. His neck was still stiff from the fall and noone had remembered to inquire about it--that was another reason for thedisgruntled mood in which the moment found him. The women were makingperfect _fools_ of themselves over that Pinkey--they were at it now, hecould hear them cackling on the veranda.
What he could not understand was why they should act as if there wassomething _amusing_ about a woman who came from west of Buffalo and thenmake a hero of a man from the Wild and Woolly. Yet they always did it,he had noticed. Why, that Pinkey could not speak a grammatical sentenceand they hung on his every word, breathless. It was disgusting!
Wallie picked up a pebble and pelted a robin.
He wished the undertow would catch that Spenceley girl. If he shouldreach her when she was going down for the third time she would _have_ tothank him for saving her and that would about kill her. He decided thathe would make a point of bathing when she did, on the very remote chancethat it might happen.
"Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie!" The name rankled.
Wallie pitched a pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it.Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltilytoward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouragedrobins, was looking.
Pinkey was crossing the lawn with the obvious intention of joining him.
"Gee!" he exclaimed, sinking down beside Wallie, "I've nearly sprainedmy tongue answerin' questions. 'Is it true that snakes shed their skin,and do the hot pools in the Yellowstone Park freeze in winter?' I'mgoin' to drift pretty pronto--I can't stand visitin'."
"Do you like the East, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Wallie, formally.
"I'm glad they's a West," Pinkey replied, cryptically.
"You and Miss Spenceley are from the same section, I take it?"
"Yep--Wyomin'."
"Er--by the way"--Wallie's tone was elaborately casual--"what did shemean yesterday when she called me 'Gentle Annie'?"
Pinkey moved uneasily.
"Could you give me the precise significance?" persisted Wallie.
"I could, but I wouldn't like to," Pinkey replied, drily
"Oh, don't spare my feelings," said Wallie, loftily, "there's nothing_she_ could say would hurt them."
"If that's the way you feel--she meant you were 'harmless'."
"I trust so," Wallie responded with dignity.
"I'd ruther be called a--er--a Mormon," Pinkey observed.
Shocked at the language, Wallie demanded:
"It is, then, an epithet of opprobrium?"
"I can't say as to that," replied Pinkey, judicially, "but she meant youwere a 'perfect lady'."
"It's more than I can say of her!" Wallie retorted, reddening.
Pinkey merely grinned and shrugged a shoulder.
He arose a moment later as if the conversation and company alike boredhim.
"Well--I'm goin' to pack my war-bag and ramble. Why don't you come Westand git civilized? With your figger you ought to be good fer somethin'.S'long, feller!"
Naturally, Wallie was not comforted by his conversation with Pinkey. Nowhe knew himself to have been insulted, and resented it, but along withhis indignation was such a feeling of dissatisfaction with his life ashe had never known. His brow contracted while he thought of the monotonyof it. Just as this summer would be a duplicate of every other summer sothe winter would be a repetition of the many winters he had spent inFlorida with Aunt Mary. After a few months at home they would migratewith the robins. He would meet the same people he had seen all summer.They would complain of the Southern cooking and knit and tat while theybabbled amiably of themselves and the members of their family and theirdoings. The men would smoke and compare business experiences when theyhad finished flaying the Administration. Discontent grew within him ashe reviewed it. Why couldn't he and Aunt Mary do something different forthe winter? By George! he would suggest it to her!
He got up with alacrity, cheerful immediately.
She was not on the veranda and Miss Eyester was of the opinion that shehad gone to her room to take her tonic.
"I have turned the shoulder, Wallie." Mrs. Appel held up the sweatertriumphantly.
"That's good," said Wallie, feeling uncomfortable with Miss Spenceleywithin hearing.
"Wallie," Mrs. Stott called to him, "will you give me the address ofthat milliner whose hats you said you liked particularly? Somewhere onWalnut, wasn't it?"
"Sixteenth and Walnut," Wallie replied, shortly.
"What do you think I'm doing, Wallie?"
"I can't imagine, Mrs. Budlong."
"I'm rolling!"
"Rolling?"
"To reduce. C. D. says I look like a cement-mixer in action."
Wallie was annoyed by the confidence.
Miss Gaskett beckoned him.
"Have you seen Cutie, Wallie?"
"No," curtly.
"When I called her this morning she looked at me with eyes like saucersand simply _tore_ into the bushes. Do you suppose anybody has abusedher?"
Mr. Cone, who was standing in the doorway, went back to his deskhastily.
"I'm not in her confidence," said Wallie with so much sarcasm that theyall looked at him.
Miss Spenceley was talking to Mr. Appel, who was listening soattentively that Wallie wondered what she was saying. They were sittingclose to the window of the reception room and it occurred to Wallie thatthere would be no harm in stepping inside and gratifying his curiosity.The conversation was not of a private nature and in other circumstanceshe would have joined them, so, on his way to the elevator to find hisaunt, he paused a moment to hear what the girl was saying.
Since she was speaking emphatically and a lace curtain was the onlybarrier, Wallie found out without difficulty:
"I have no use for a squaw-man."
"You mean," Mr. Appel interrogated, "a white man who marries an Indianwoman?"
"Not necessarily. I mean a man who permits a woman to support himwithout making any effort on his part to do a man's work. He may be anAdonis and gifted to the point of genius, but I have no respect for him.He----"
Wallie did not linger. He remembered the ancient adage, and while he didnot consider himself an eavesdropper or believe that Miss Spenceleymeant anything personal, nevertheless the shoe fit to such a nicety thathe hurried to the elevator, his step accelerated by the same sense ofguilt that had sent Mr. Cone scuttling to his refuge behind the counter.
"Squaw-man"--the term was as new to him as "Gentle Annie."
As Miss Eyester had opined, Miss Macpherson was taking her tonic, orabout to.
"I've come to make a suggestion, Auntie," Wallie began, with a littlediffidence.
"What is it?" Miss Macpherson was shaking the bottle.
"Let's not go South this winter."
"Where then?" She smiled indulgently as she measured out the medicine.
"Why not California or Arizona?" he suggested.
"I don't believe this tonic helps me a particle." She made a wry face asshe swallowed it.
"That's it," he declared, eagerly. "You need a change--we both do."
"I'm too set in my ways to enjoy new experiences, and I don't likestrangers. We might catch contagious diseases, and there is no placewhere we could be so comfortable as in Flor
ida. No," she shook her headkindly but firmly, "we will go South as usual."
"Oh--_sugar!_" The vehemence with which Wallie uttered the expletiveshowed the extent of his disappointment.
"Wallie! I'm surprised at you!" She regarded him with annoyance.
"I'm tired of going to the same places year after year, doing the samething, seeing the same old fossils!"
"Wallie, you are speaking of my friends and yours," she reminded him.
"They're all right, but I like to make new ones. I don't want to go,Aunt Mary."
She said significantly:
"Don't you think you are a little ungrateful--in the circumstances?"
It was the first time she had ever reminded him of his dependency.
"If you mean I am an ingrate, that is an unpleasant word, Aunt Mary."
She shrugged her shoulder.
"Place your own interpretation upon it, Wallace."
"Perhaps you think I am not capable of earning my own living?"
"I have not _said_ so."
"But you mean it!" he cried, hotly.
Miss Macpherson was nearly as amazed as Wallie to hear herself saying:
"Possibly you had better try it."
She had taken two cups of strong coffee that morning and her nerves wereover-stimulated, and perhaps with the intuition of a jealous woman shehalf suspected that "the girl from Wyoming" had something to do with hisrestlessness and desire to go West. The time she most dreaded was theday when she would have to share her nephew with another woman.
Wallie's eyes were blazing when he answered:
"I shall! I shall never be beholden to you for another penny. When Iwanted to do something for myself you wouldn't let me. You're not fair,Aunt Mary!"
Pale and breathing heavily in their emotion, they looked at each otherwith hard, angry eyes--eyes in which there was not a trace of theaffection which for years had existed between them.
"Suit yourself," she said, finally, and turned her back on him.
Wallie went to his room in a daze, too bewildered to realize immediatelywhat had happened. That he had quarrelled with his aunt, permanently,irrevocably, seemed incredible. But he would never eat her bread ofcharity again--he had said it. As for her, he knew her Scotchstubbornness too well to think that she would offer it. No, he was surethe break was final.
A sense of freedom came to him gradually as it grew upon him that he wasloose from the apron-strings that had led him since childhood. He neednever again eat food he did not like because it was "good for him." Hecould sit in draughts if he wanted to and sneeze his head off. He couldput on his woollen underwear when he got darned good and ready. He couldswim when there were white caps in the harbour and choose his ownclothing.
A fine feeling of exultation swept over Wallie as he strode up and downwith an eye to the way he looked in the mirror. He was free of petticoatdomination. He was no longer a "squaw-man," and he would not be oneagain for a million dollars! He would "show" Aunt Mary--he would "show"Helene Spenceley--he would "show" _everybody!_
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