He laughed most of the way home, and Mr. Todd walked at his side in amazement. The Herald Building was a decrepit frame structure on Main Street; it had once been a small warehouse and was now sadly in need of paint. Closely adjoining it, in a large, blank-looking yard, stood a low brick cottage, over which the second story of the warehouse leaned in an effect of tipsy affection that had reminded Harkless, when he first saw it, of an old Sunday-school book wood-cut of an inebriated parent under convoy of a devoted child. The title to these two buildings and the blank yard had been included in the purchase of the “Herald”; and the cottage was Harkless’s home.
There was a light burning upstairs in the “Herald” office. From the street a broad, tumble-down stairway ran up on the outside of the building to the second floor, and at the stairway railing John turned and shook his companion warmly by the hand.
“Good-night, William,” he said. “It was plucky of you to join in that muss, to-night. I shan’t forget it.”
“I jest happened to come along,” replied the other, drowsily; then, with a portentous yawn, he asked: “Ain’t ye goin’ to bed?”
“No; Parker wouldn’t allow it.”
“Well,” observed William, with another yawn, which bade fair to expose the veritable soul of him, “I d’know how ye stand it. It’s closte on eleven o’clock. Good-night.”
John went up the steps, singing aloud:
“For to-night we’ll merry, merry be,
For to-night we’ll merry, merry be,”
and stopped on the sagging platform at the top of the stairs and gave the moon good-night with a wave of the hand and friendly laughter. At that it suddenly struck him that he was twenty-nine years of age; that he had laughed a great deal that evening; that he had laughed and laughed over things not in the least humorous, like an excited schoolboy making his first formal call; that he had shaken hands with Miss Briscoe when he left her, as if he should never see her again; that he had taken Miss Sherwood’s hand twice in one very temporary parting; that he had shaken the judge’s hand five times, and William’s four!
“Idiot!” he cried. “What has happened to me?” Then he shook his fist at the moon and went in to work — he thought.
CHAPTER VII. MORNING: “SOME IN RAGS AND SOME IN TAGS AND SOME IN VELVET
GOWNS”
The bright sun of circus-day shone into Harkless’s window, and he awoke to find himself smiling. For a little while he lay content, drowsily wondering why he smiled, only knowing that there was something new. It was thus, as a boy, he had wakened on his birthday mornings, or on Christmas, or on the Fourth of July, drifting happily out of pleasant dreams into the consciousness of long-awaited delights that had come true, yet lying only half-awake in a cheerful borderland, leaving happiness undefined.
The morning breeze was fluttering at his window blind; a honeysuckle vine tapped lightly on the pane. Birds were trilling, warbling, whistling. From the street came the rumbling of wagons, merry cries of greeting, and the barking of dogs. What was it made him feel so young and strong and light-hearted? The breeze brought him the smell of June roses, fresh and sweet with dew, and then he knew why he had come smiling from his dreams. He would go a holiday-making. With that he leaped out of bed, and shouted loudly: “Zen! Hello, Xenophon!”
In answer, an ancient, very black darky put his head in at the door, his warped and wrinkled visage showing under his grizzled hair like charred paper in a fall of pine ashes. He said: “Good-mawn’, suh. Yessuh. Hit’s done pump’ full. Good-mawn’, suh.”
A few moments later, the colored man, seated on the front steps of the cottage, heard a mighty splashing within, while the rafters rang with stentorian song:
“He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue ribbon,
He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue ribbon,
He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue ribbon,
To tie up my bonny brown hair
“Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Johnnie’s so long at the Fair!”
At the sound of this complaint, delivered in a manly voice, the listener’s jaw dropped, and his mouth opened and stayed open. “Him!” he muttered, faintly. “Singin’!”
“Well, the old Triangle knew the music of our tread;
How the peaceful Seminole would tremble in his bed!”
sang the editor. “I dunno huccome it,” exclaimed the old man, “an’ dat ain’ hyer ner dar; but, bless Gawd! de young man’ happy!” A thought struck him suddenly, and he scratched his head. “Maybe he goin’ away,” he said, querulously. “What become o’ ole Zen?” The splashing ceased, but not the voice, which struck into a noble marching chorus. “Oh, my Lawd,” said the colored man, “I pray you listen at dat!”
“Soldiers marching up the street,
They keep the time;
They look sublime!
Hear them play Die Wacht am Rhein!
They call them Schneider’s Band.
Tra la la la, la!”
The length of Main Street and all the Square resounded with the rattle of vehicles of every kind. Since earliest dawn they had been pouring into the village, a long procession on every country road. There were great red and blue farm wagons, drawn by splendid Clydesdales; the elders of the family on the front seat and on boards laid from side to side in front, or on chairs placed close behind, while, in the deep beds back of these, children tumbled in the straw, or peeped over the sides, rosy-cheeked and laughing, eyes alight with blissful anticipations. There were more pretentious two-seated cut-unders and stout buckboards, loaded down with merrymakers, four on a seat meant for two; there were rattle-trap phaetons and comfortable carry-alls drawn by steady spans; and, now and then, mule teams bringing happy negroes, ready to squander all on the first Georgia watermelons and cider. Every vehicle contained heaping baskets of good things to eat (the previous night had been a woeful Bartholomew for Carlow chickens) and underneath, where the dogs paced faithfully, swung buckets and fodder for the horses, while colts innumerable trotted dose to the maternal flanks, viewing the world with their big, new eyes in frisky surprise.
Here and there the trim side-bar buggy of some prosperous farmer’s son, escorting his sweetheart, flashed along the road, the young mare stepping out in pride of blood to pass the line of wagons, the youth who held the reins, resplendent in Sunday best and even better, his scorched brown face glowing with a fine belief in the superiority of both his steed and his lady; the latter beaming out upon life and rejoicing in the light-blue ribbons on her hat, the light-blue ribbon around her waist, the light-blue, silk half-mittens on her hands, and the beautiful red coral necklace about her neck and the red coral buttons that fastened her gown in the back.
The air was full of exhilaration; everybody was laughing and shouting and calling greetings; for Carlow County was turning out, and from far and near the country people came; nay, from over the county line, clouds of dust rising from every thoroughfare and highway, and sweeping into town to herald their coming.
Dibb Zane, the “sprinkling contractor,” had been at work with the town water-cart since the morning stars were bright, but he might as well have watered the streets with his tears, which, indeed, when the farmers began to come in, bringing their cyclones of dust, he drew nigh unto, after a spell of profanity as futile as his cart.
“Tief wie das Meer soll deine Liebe sein,”
hummed the editor in the cottage. His song had taken on a reflective tone as that of one who cons a problem, or musically ponders which card to play. He was kneeling before an old trunk in his bedchamber. From one compartment he took a neatly folded pair of duck trousers and a light-gray tweed coat; from another, a straw hat with a ribbon of bright colors. They had lain in the trunk a long time undisturbed; and he examined them musingly. He shook the coat and brushed it; then he laid the garments upon his bed, and proceeded to shave himself carefully, after which he don
ned the white trousers, the gray coat, and, rummaging in the trunk again, found a gay pink cravat, which he fastened about his tall collar (also a resurrection from the trunk) with a pearl pin. After that he had a long, solemn time arranging his hair with a pair of brushes. When at last he was suited, and his dressing completed, he sallied forth to breakfast.
Xenophon stared after him as he went out of the gate whistling heartily. The old darky lifted his hands, palms outward.
“Lan’ name, who dat!” he exclaimed aloud. “Who dat in dem pan-jingeries? He jine’ de circus?” His hands fell upon his knees, and he got to his feet pneumatically, shaking his head with foreboding. “Honey, honey, hit’ baid luck, baid luck sing ‘fo’ breakfus. Trouble ‘fo’ de day be done. Trouble, honey, gre’t trouble. Baid luck, baid luck!”
Along the Square the passing of the editor in his cool equipment evoked some gasps of astonishment; and Mr. Tibbs and his sister rushed from the postoffice to stare after him.
“He looks just beautiful, Solomon,” said Miss Tibbs.
“But what’s the name for them kind of clothes?” inquired her brother. “‘Seems to me there’s a special way of callin’ ’em. ‘Seems as if I see a picture of ’em, somewheres. Wasn’t it on the cover of that there long-tennis box we bought and put in the window, and the country people thought it was a seining outfit?”
“It was a game, the catalogue said,” observed Miss Selina. “Wasn’t it?”
“It was a mighty pore investment,” the postmaster answered.
As Harkless approached the hotel, a decrepit old man, in a vast straw hat and a linen duster much too large for him, came haltingly forward to meet him. He was Widow-Woman Wimby’s husband. And, as did every one else, he spoke of his wife by the name of her former martial companion.
“Be’n a-lookin’ fer you, Mr. Harkless,” he said in a shaking spindle of a voice, as plaintive as his pale little eyes. “Mother Wimby, she sent some roses to ye. Cynthy’s fixin’ ’em on yer table. I’m well as ever I am; but her, she’s too complaining to come in fer show-day. This morning, early, we see some the Cross-Roads folks pass the place towards town, an’ she sent me in to tell ye. Oh, I knowed ye’d laugh. Says she, ‘He’s too much of a man to be skeered,’ says she, ‘these here tall, big men always ‘low nothin’ on earth kin hurt ’em,’ says she, ‘but you tell him to be keerful,’ says she; an’ I see Bill Skillett an’ his brother on the Square lessun a half-an-hour ago, ‘th my own eyes. I won’t keep ye from yer breakfast. — Eph Watts is in there, eatin’. He’s come back; but I guess I don’t need to warn ye agin’ him. He seems peaceable enough. It’s the other folks you got to look out fer.”
He limped away. The editor waved his hand to him from the door, but the old fellow shook his head, and made a warning, friendly gesture with his arm.
Harkless usually ate his breakfast alone, as he was the latest riser in Plattville. (There were days in the winter when he did not reach the hotel until eight o’clock.) This morning he found a bunch of white roses, still wet with dew and so fragrant that the whole room was fresh and sweet with their odor, prettily arranged in a bowl on the table, and, at his plate, the largest of all with a pin through the stem. He looked up, smilingly, and nodded at the red-haired girl. “Thank you, Charmion,” he said. “That’s very pretty.”
She turned even redder than she always was, and answered nothing, vigorously darting her brush at an imaginary fly on the cloth. After several minutes she said abruptly, “You’re welcome.”
There was a silence, finally broken by a long, gasping sigh. Astonished, he looked at the girl. Her eyes were set unfathomably upon his pink tie; the wand had dropped from her nerveless hand, and she stood rapt and immovable. She started violently from her trance. “Ain’t you goin’ to finish your coffee?” she asked, plying her instrument again, and, bending over him slightly, whispered: “Say, Eph Watts is over there behind you.”
At a table in a far corner of the room a large gentleman in a brown frock coat was quietly eating his breakfast and reading the “Herald.” He was of an ornate presence, though entirely neat. A sumptuous expanse of linen exhibited itself between the lapels of his low-cut waistcoat, and an inch of bediamonded breastpin glittered there, like an ice-ledge on a snowy mountain side. He had a steady, blue eye and a dissipated, iron-gray mustache. This personage was Mr. Ephraim Watts, who, following a calling more fashionable in the eighteenth century than in the latter decades of the nineteenth, had shaken the dust of Carlow from his feet some three years previously, at the strong request of the authorities. The “Herald” had been particularly insistent upon his deportation, and, in the local phrase, Harkless had “run him out of town.” Perhaps it was because the “Herald’s” opposition (as the editor explained at the time) had been merely moral and impersonal, and the editor had always confessed to a liking for the unprofessional qualities of Mr. Watts, that there was but slight embarrassment when the two gentlemen met to-day. His breakfast finished, Harkless went over to the other and extended his hand. Cynthia held her breath and clutched the back of a chair. However, Mr. Watts made no motion toward his well-known hip pocket. Instead, he rose, flushed slightly, and accepted the hand offered him.
“I’m glad to see you, Mr. Watts,” said the journalist, cordially. “Also, if you are running with the circus and calculate on doing business here to-day, I’ll have to see that you are fired out of town before noon. How are you? You’re looking extremely well.”
“Mr. Harkless,” answered Watts, “I cherish no hard feelings, and I never said but what you done exactly right when I left, three years ago. No, sir; I’m not here in a professional way at all, and I don’t want to be molested. I’ve connected myself with an oil company, and I’m down here to look over the ground. It beats poker and fan-tan hollow, though there ain’t as many chances in favor of the dealer, and in oil it’s the farmer that gets the rake-off. I’ve come back, but in an enterprising spirit this time, to open up a new field and shed light and money in Carlow. They told me never to show my face here again, but if you say I stay, I guess I stay. I always was sure there was oil in the county, and I want to prove it for everybody’s benefit. Is it all right?”
“My dear fellow,” laughed the young man, shaking the gambler’s hand again, “it is all right. I have always been sorry I had to act against you. Everything is all right! Stay and bore to Corea if you like. Did ever you see such glorious weather?”
“I’ll let you in on some shares,” Watts called after him as he turned away. He nodded in reply and was leaving the room when Cynthia detained him by a flourish of the fly-brush. “Say,” she said, — she always called him “Say”— “You’ve forgot your flower.”
He came back, and thanked her. “Will you pin it on for me, Charmion?”
“I don’t know what call you got to speak to me out of my name,” she responded, looking at the floor moodily.
“Why?” he asked, surprised.
“I don’t see why you want to make fun of me.”
“I beg your pardon, Cynthia,” he said gravely. “I didn’t mean to do that. I haven’t been considerate. I didn’t think you’d be displeased. I’m very sorry. Won’t you pin it on my coat?”
Her face was lifted in grateful pleasure, and she began to pin the rose to his lapel. Her hands were large and red and trembled. She dropped the flower, and, saying huskily, “I don’t know as I could do it right,” seized violently upon a pile of dishes and hurried from the room.
Harkless rescued the rose, pinned it on his coat himself, and, observing internally, for the hundredth time, that the red-haired waitress was the queerest creature in the village, set forth gaily upon his holiday.
When he reached the brick house on the pike he discovered a gentleman sunk in an easy and contemplative attitude in a big chair behind the veranda railing. At the click of the gate the lounger rose and disclosed the stalwart figure and brown, smiling, handsome face of Mr. Lige Willetts, an habitual devotee of Minnie Briscoe, and the most eligible
bachelor of Carlow. “The ladies will be down right off,” he said, greeting the editor’s finery with a perceptible agitation and the editor himself with a friendly shake of the hand. “Mildy says to wait out here.”
But immediately there was a faint rustling within the house: the swish of draperies on the stairs, a delicious whispering when light feet descend, tapping, to hearts that beat an answer, the telegraphic message, “We come! We come! We are near! We are near!” Lige Willetts stared at Harkless. He had never thought the latter good-looking until he saw him step to the door to take Miss Sherwood’s hand and say in a strange, low, tense voice, “Good-morning,” as if he were announcing, at the least: “Every one in the world except us two, died last night. It is a solemn thing, but I am very happy.”
They walked, Minnie and Mr. Willetts a little distance in front of the others. Harkless could not have told, afterward, whether they rode, or walked, or floated on an air-ship to the court-house. All he knew distinctly was that a divinity in a pink shirt waist, and a hat that was woven of gauzy cloud by mocking fairies to make him stoop hideously to see under it, dwelt for the time on earth and was at his side, dazzling him in the morning sunshine. Last night the moon had lent her a silvery glamour; she had something of the ethereal whiteness of night-dews in that watery light, a nymph to laugh from a sparkling fountain, at the moon or, as he thought, remembering her courtesy for his pretty speech, perhaps a little lady of King Louis’s court, wandering down the years from Fontainebleau and appearing to clumsy mortals sometimes, of a June night when the moon was in their heads.
But to-day she was of the clearest color, a pretty girl, whose gray eyes twinkled to his in gay companionship. He marked how the sunshine was spun into the fair shadows of her hair and seemed itself to catch a lustre, rather than to impart it, and the light of the June day drifted through the gauzy hat, touching her face with a delicate and tender flush that came and went like the vibrating pink of early dawn. She had the divinest straight nose, tip-tilted the faintest, most alluring trifle, and a dimple cleft her chin, “the deadliest maelstrom in the world!” He thrilled through and through. He had been only vaguely conscious of the dimple in the night. It was not until he saw her by daylight that he really knew it was there.
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 8