“Barton!” said he, a contempt now in his own voice, “you dishonor yourself by such words more than you could possibly dishonor me or any woman, good or bad; and this one is a stranger to us both.”
He turned after his rebuke, and walked away amid a silence that was unbroken until he reached the corner and was just about to pass out of sight. Then a single word was hurled at him by a boy on the edge of the crowd, a thin boy with hay-colored hair, light eyes, and a weak, contemptible mouth.
“Coward!” he yelled, loud and distinct. He would not have dared do it with the minister’s eye upon him. It reached the minister’s ears, and the crowd knew it must have done so, but he did not swerve a hair’s breadth from his course and was gone from their sight. The word seemed to rebound from him as if it had struck a wall of cement.
Instantly, Jimmy dived under the arm of the man who stood between him and the tall boy. It was Lanky, whom he had whipped once that day. Jimmy gave him no time to prepare this time. Without warning he bounced, head down, straight into the stomach of the boy who had dishonored the minister, and, taking him thus unexpectedly, upset him into the road.
Jimmy was upon him before the boy fairly knew he was landed, and once more he recoiled under the iron grip of the wiry little fingers. Sitting astride of him, his seat well chosen for distance, his small bare legs encircling his victim’s arms, pinioning them to his sides, Jimmy rained the blows thick and fast upon him.
The crowd stood back, well pleased, not interfering, though a passing woman protested, “Someone ought to separate them kids.” The crowd was being amused, and now that the fight between the minister and Barton was off, they were willing to have a substitute.
“You gotta say thet you know the minister ain’t no coward,” said Jimmy calmly, holding a threatening fist aloft, ready to strike again.
Lanky, looking eagerly among the crowd for a friend and meeting the wavering laugh of the bystanders, shut his mouth sullenly. He had not much choice. If he obeyed Jimmy, he would be the laughingstock of the town, and, of all things, Lanky hated to be laughed at.
But he had not long to wait. The blows descended upon him once more with redoubled force and energy. There was determination in Jimmy’s red, mad little face, and his grip was that of a bulldog. Lanky tried to unseat him, but in vain. At last he cried out, “All right, have it yer own way!”
“Well, say it then, good an’ loud.” The blows continued, though lighter.
“I say it,” said Lanky at the top of his voice.
“No, that ain’t what I mean. Yer to say the words, ‘the minister ain’t no coward,’ just like that, only louder.”
“The minister—aint—no—boo—ow!—ow!—ow! you stop! I can’t talk when you hit me like thet.”
“Well then, say it good an’ loud, loud enough fer the minister to hear. I’ll wait till you get it said.”
Jimmy paused threateningly.
“The—minister—ain’t no—coward!” gasped Lanky shamedly.
“No, that ain’t loud ’nough. The minister’s clear to Mis’ Bartlett’s gate by this time. You holler it! Holler it loud ’nough fer him to hear!” And this time Lanky “hollered,” and the word “coward” came sounding through the air, alone, to the minister’s ear, making him long to turn and face them all. He looked down the street, half expecting to see a mob of small boys after him.
“Now,” said Jimmy, looking down into his victim’s face, “you ken git up. An’ ef I ever catch you at anythin’ like thet again, I won’t let you off so easy.”
Lightly he sprang up from his work, and turning toward the crowd, who had of course sided with the victor, he cast one glance of scorn at them all as if he had but been doing what they should have done. The red face of Barton leered in the center, and Jimmy’s eyes fixed themselves upon it for an instant, recognizing some subtle enmity between them; then he said, as he stuck his hands unconcernedly in his pockets and turned to swagger away, “Fer half a cent I’d lick you, too!”
The ready guffaw of the listeners followed him down the street, and he knew that he had the laugh on the bootlegger, whose angry, menacing glance he did not see. Straight into the gate of the Cedars he marched, and shut it slowly after him as if he were Constance’s natural protector, and whistled as he walked up the path, reflecting on all that had happened.
“Thet’s a great kid, thet is,” reflected Holly aloud as he turned to leave the audience after the play was over. “He’ll make his way in the world, I’ll bet—an’ some other folks’, too, mebbe!” And he walked away, pondering on chivalry. Later he took his way to the side door of the drugstore and asked Jennie if she would go with him to have a dish of ice cream.
Jennie was a pretty girl, though she was Si Barton’s sister. Her chin tilted slightly; she had synthetic pink cheeks, large blue eyes that were not shy, and wore cheap, abnormally brief silk frocks, gaudy beads, and her hair in a bushy bob, which she constantly patted and smoothed. Jennie subscribed to a fashion magazine and aimed to keep up with the times.
Usually, Jennie looked with contempt upon Holly’s advances, but this time she was bored. Besides, she had another admirer whom she felt needed a little punishment. Therefore, Jennie accepted the invitation.
She had on her pink sweater that night and a pink-and-white pleated skirt. Holly thought she looked unusually pretty. He decided that she was really prettier than the new lady who kept the tearoom, though there was something stately and far away about her that made her seem like a picture that one ought not to touch. Holly was a thinker, in his way.
Jennie, half fearful of the twilight as she passed the cedar trees, clung to Holly’s great arm and giggled a good deal. She looked around the palm room with open admiration and declared it would make a lovely ballroom. She wondered whether the new lady would have a dance sometime and invite them all. Then she remarked upon the missing mirror that was supposed to exercise such strong ghostly power, and wondered what the new lady had done with it. Holly called her attention to the great painting of the sea. Jennie said, “Yes, it is pretty. Gosh! What a frame! It must have cost a pile!” Holly saw she did not feel as he did about the water, nor seem to imagine ships coming by in the misty horizon. Holly was greatly struck by that picture.
Norah was very tired, though she would not admit it, and Constance had sent her upstairs to rest, telling her she was sure there would be no one else there that evening. Norah, saying she would just lie down a bit if Miss Constance would call her if anyone came, had finally submitted.
Constance was sitting in the sweet spring darkness of the veranda in her white flannel dress when Holly and Jennie arrived. The room was lit up behind her, making a halo of light. Her grandmother had retired for the night, and there was nothing for Constance to do but wait to see whether other customers would come. She did not expect any, or she would perhaps have kept Norah, for she shrank from coming into contact with people; yet she was trying to make up her mind to it, for she knew it would have to be done sooner or later.
So it was Constance who took the order and went in her unaccustomed awkward way to the freezer for the cream. It was a wonder she did not flavor the cream with salt, but good fortune attended her efforts, and when she had placed it before her customers, she felt that she had accomplished a Herculean task. She was as pleased as a child being allowed to try some new duty. She sat in the library across the hall, waiting to see whether there was anything else needed while Holly and Jennie ate their cream and cake and talked in low, half-shy tones.
“My! Ain’t she handsome?” exclaimed Jennie under her breath, following Constance with her eyes as she went out of the room. “She looks for all the world like one of the ladies in my fashion magazine, and I don’t see what makes it! She hasn’t got much jewelry and no makeup at all. Her clothes look as if they grew on her and didn’t bother her a bit.”
“I don’t see’s they look’s purty’s yourn,” said Holly gallantly. “Thet there bias pink rosette you’ve got slung on your shoulder, ef
that’s what you call it, ’s mighty becomin’.”
Jennie giggled and flushed a pretty pink over the compliment to the artificial rose she wore, but she could not get done with the appearance of Constance.
“Wisht I knew how she waves her hair,” she murmured.
“Why don’t you ask her? I would,” said Holly. He always went straight to the point.
“Would you?” said Jennie, pleased with the thought. “Mebbe I will when I get to know her better.”
“Seems to me your hair’s purty enough as ’tis,” said Holly, with a clumsy wink that was meant to show appreciation.
Jennie felt a glow of pleasure over his gentle tone. She looked her rough admirer over critically. He wouldn’t be so bad-looking, she thought, if he could be dressed up like a real gentleman. A white shirt and a stylish necktie was the making of a man in Jennie’s opinion.
When they had finished, Jennie lingered in the hall casting a wistful eye into the open library that had a look about it of a world Jennie did not know. It invited her, and she longed to go in and investigate. But Holly had in view a walk in the moonlight, and he hurried her out.
It was late the next afternoon, when Constance sat down in the library to answer some letters and put a few old friends off their trail, that Jennie made her first venture.
She came stealing to the front door, half afraid. Tiptoeing into the hall and finding no one about, she ventured to knock on the library door then, abashed, drew back to the shelter of the front entrance.
Constance, surprised, opened the door, and there stood the girl, in all her bravery of best clothes. She had chosen a new, cheap, bright blue silk for the occasion, and she looked shy and uncomfortable.
“I thought I’d come over to call,” said Jennie shyly, as she found Constance expected her to speak first, evidently thinking she had come to order something in the tearoom. “I thought mebbe you’d be lonesome in a new place and would like another girl to come in and be friendly.”
“Why, certainly,” said Constance, bewildered. It occurred to her that this was kindness. “Won’t you come in and sit down? Come right in here,” she said on second thought, pushing back the heavy curtains of her own inner sanctum, the room back of the library, where stood her beautiful piano, her favorite books, and all the prettiest of her own particular things. It was her spot where she could come and feel at home when the new life grew hard and unbearable, if it ever did. Just now it was interesting, though she saw possibilities in the future that made this room seem like a city of refuge. What impulse seized her to bring this girl into her inner sanctum she did not know.
“My! Ain’t this pretty!” said Jennie, looking around with satisfaction. “This looks egzactly like a room in my fashion magazine. They tell how you can make rooms real pretty. I been thinking of trying, but I was afraid. Mebbe I’ll try now I’ve seen a real one to pattern after. Oh, do you play the py-ano? Won’t you please play for me? Oh, I’d just love to have a py-ano. I’ve got an organ, cab-net, you know, and I took a whole term of lessons on it. I love to play hymns. I can play ‘Jesus, Lover of My Soul,’ and ‘Way Down upon the Swanee River,’ and ‘All by Yourself in the Moonlight.’ Can you play that? I’ve always wanted to see if I got it right. Sarah Briskit sent it to me from Philadelphia. She’s moved there. She was my girlfriend. I haven’t had any since she went away. Mebbe you ’n’ I’ll get to be intimate friends. I think I’d like you real well.”
Constance smiled, though she was conscious of a chilly feeling about her heart. This was not exactly the kind of intimate friend she would have chosen. Nevertheless, it might be that this was all that was left to her. Well, a friend was not to be despised. She would find out what kind of a girl this was.
Jennie rattled on.
“We haven’t been introduced, have we? I’m Jennie Barton. My brother owns the stores across the road. I keep house for him. No, we haven’t anybody else in the family. Pa and Ma died a long while ago. I lived with my aunt in Cross Crick till Si came here and wanted me to keep house for him, but I don’t like it much. I hate to live over a store. I tried to get Si to rent our rooms to another party and get us a house down the street, but he won’t do it. He’s awfully set in his ways. What’s your name? Yes, I know the last part, Weth’rell. Jimmy Watts told me. But I mean your first name. If we’re going to be intimate, we’ll have to know each other’s names. Constance? My! What a funny name! I don’t know but it’s kind of pretty and high sounding, though. But do folks call you that? What do your girlfriends where you come from call you?”
Constance thought quickly. She certainly did not care to have this girl flinging her first name about familiarly in the drugstore. But neither did she care to hurt her feelings.
“Well, you know,” she said pleasantly, “in a city, people are a little more formal than in small places, I guess—”
“Well, what do you like to be called?”
Here was the question. Constance must face it; and in her answer she showed the delicate tact of her high breeding.
“I think I like to be called ‘Miss Wetherill’ usually. That is what I am accustomed to, you know. Except, perhaps here in this room when we are all alone. You might call me ‘Constance’ then, if you wanted to. When other people are by, ‘Miss Wetherill’ would be much more suitable.”
Jennie looked at her in undisguised admiration. Already the subtle something in Constance, which made the difference between them, had impressed her. She was ashamed that she had presumed.
“My!” she said at last. “Constance! I don’t know’s I’d dare! I think I’ll call you just ‘Dear,’ if you don’t mind. You look like ‘Dear,’ do you know it?”
Constance’s heart melted at this sincere admiration. Jennie was crude, but she had possibilities.
The call lasted some time. Constance played for her caller. She explained that “All by Yourself in the Moonlight” was not in her repertoire, but she would play some of her favorites. She tried a bright waltz or two just to test the taste of her guest. Jennie’s eyes shone, and she came and stood beside the piano with great delight in her face, her cheap little high-heeled shoes tapping the floor in time to the music. Then Constance, just out of curiosity, opened a volume of Chopin’s Nocturnes and Preludes.
“Now I’m going to play you something that I love myself. I want to see what you think about it.”
Jennie’s face flashed a smile.
She began to play, and the girl stood in a strange fascination. The music no longer claimed her attention. She was watching the white fingers gliding over the keys, the gleam of the rings, the pretty turn of the wrist, admiring and envying. Oh, to be like this!
She drew a long sigh when the music was over, and sank down in the easy chair near the piano. “I like the other best,” she confessed frankly. “This one makes me feel kind of sad. Do you like to be sad?”
“Why, no,” said Constance, wheeling about to her guest. “It isn’t all sad. Next time you come over I’ll play it again and explain it to you. There’s a meaning to it, you know.”
“There is?” said the girl wonderingly. “Is there a meaning to all music? Well, now that’s strange. You know a whole lot of things, don’t you? My! I wish I was like you. I never had much chance. But I take a fashion magazine, and I’m trying to do all I can. I reckon you’ll be a help to me, too. Say, do you mind telling me how you wave your hair? Holly said he thought ’twould be all right for me to ask.”
“Not at all,” said Constance, laughing good-naturedly. “I never wave it at all. It waves itself. It was made that way. But who is Holly?”
“My!” said Jennie. “How nice! Natural curly! I’d just give anything if mine was. Why, Holly? He’s a friend of mine”—Holly had made some progress with Jennie during his walk the night before—“the one I was with for ice cream last night.”
Jennie left soon after that, leaving Constance somewhat shaken in her ideas of things. This was an entirely new type, but amazingly interesting. Yet she could not hel
p wondering what Morris Thayer would say if he could see her playing Chopin to this crude girl.
Chapter 14
Jimmy had proffered his request about churchgoing early in the week. Constance was somewhat dismayed at the idea at first and told him she would see, but Jimmy was not easily balked in a desire, and he talked so much about the church, the minister, the singing, and the service that Constance, laughing, promised to go with him the following Sabbath evening.
Jimmy appeared with his hair slicked smoothly back and a collar several sizes too large surrounding his thin little neck like a high board fence. It was, in fact, one that had belonged to his elder brother. He put it on for this occasion because it seemed more grown up. He looked very happy and uncomfortable, if those two things can go hand in hand.
Constance, in quiet city Sunday garb, walked by his side, looked at him surreptitiously several times, and tried to keep from smiling. She decided she liked the Jimmy of every day better than this young country coxcomb, and wondered whether it would not be possible for her to persuade him to send for a nice dark blue serge suit from the city and let her pay for it in installments. She did not wish to make him conscious of his attire that evening, so she refrained from suggesting it then, and Jimmy swaggered along by her side, calmly unconscious of the impression he was making upon her. He looked at each one who passed to see whether they saw with whom he was walking. Jimmy was exceedingly proud of his lady.
Constance noticed as they passed into the church how near the drugstore seemed to it. The loungers by the drugstore door could easily hear the singing and preaching when the windows were open. The store was brightly lighted, and business seemed to be going on as briskly as on any other day in the week.
Some of the church windows were open a foot from the bottom, and the heads and shoulders of people could be seen from the street. The church looked pleasant and very bright inside. There was a warmth of spirit in the very atmosphere that made Constance think of her aunt Susan’s home. That was it, it was homelike.
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