“I said I spoke to. I didn’t say I would carry it.”
“Well, I’d like to know the dif — —”
But Florence cut him off. “I’ll tell you the difference, since you’re so anxious to know the truth, Mister Herbert Atwater! The difference is just this: you had no biznuss to meddle with those vile ole bugs in the first place, and get me all stung up so’t I shouldn’t wonder I’d haf to have the doctor, time I get home, and if I do I’m goin’ to tell mamma all about it and make her send the bill to your father. I want you to know I hurt!”
“My goodness!” Herbert burst out. “Don’t you s’pose I hurt any? I guess you don’t hurt any worse than — —”
She stopped him: “Listen!”
From down the street there came a brazen clamouring for the right of way; it grew imperiously louder, and there were clatterings and whizzings of metallic bodies at speed, while little blurs and glistenings in the distance grew swiftly larger, taking shape as a fire engine and a hose-cart. Then, round the near-by corner, came perilously steering the long “hook-and-ladder wagon”; it made the turn and went by, with its firemen imperturbable on the running boards.
“Fire!” Florence cried joyfully. “Let’s go!” And, pausing no instant, she made off up the street, shouting at the top of her voice: “Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Herbert followed. He was not so swift a runner as she, though this he never submitted to a test admitted to be fair and conclusive; and he found her demonstration of superiority particularly offensive now, as she called back over her shoulder: “Why don’t you keep up with me? Can’t you keep up?”
“I’d show you!” he panted. “If I didn’t haf to lug this ole basket, I’d leave you a mile behind mighty quick.”
“Well, why’n’t you drop it, then?”
“You s’pose I’m goin’ to throw my c’lection away after all the trouble I been through with it?”
She slackened her gait, dropping back beside him. “Well, then, if you think you could keep up with me if you didn’t have it, why’n’t you leave it somewhere, and come back and get it after the fire’s over?”
“No place to leave it.”
She laughed, and pointed. “Why’n’t you leave it at grandpa’s?”
“Will you wait for me and start fair?”
“Come on!” They obliqued across the street, still running forward, and at their grandfather’s gate Herbert turned in and sped toward the house.
“Take it around to the kitchen and give it to Kitty Silver,” Florence called. “Tell Kitty Silver to take care of it for you.”
But Herbert was in no mind to follow her advice; a glance over his shoulder showed that Florence was taking another unfair advantage of him. “You wait!” he shouted. “You stand still till I get back there! You got half a mile start a’ready! You wait till we can start even!”
But Florence was skipping lightly away and she caroled over her shoulder, waving her hand in mocking farewell as she began to run:
“Ole Mister Slowpoke can’t catch me!
Ole Mister Slowpoke couldn’t catch a flea!”
“I’ll show you!” he bellowed, and, not to lose more time, he dashed up the steps of the deserted veranda, thrust his basket deep underneath a wicker settee, and ran violently after his elusive cousin.
She kept a tantalizing distance between them, but when they reached the fire it was such a grand one they forgot all their differences — and also all about the basket.
CHAPTER NINE
NOBLE DILL CAME from his father’s house, after dinner that evening, a youth in blossom, like the shrubberies and garden beds in the dim yards up and down Julia’s Street. All cooled and bathed and in new clothes of white, he took his thrilled walk through the deep summer twilight, on his way to that ineffable Front Porch where sat Julia, misty in the dusk. The girlish little new moon had perished naïvely out of the sky; the final pinkness of the west was gone; blue evening held the quiet world; and overhead, between the branches of the maple trees, were powdered all those bright pin points of light that were to twinkle on generations of young lovers after Noble Dill, each one, like Noble, walking the same fragrant path in summer twilights to see the Prettiest Girl of All.
Now and then there came to the faintly throbbing ears of the pedestrian a murmur of voices from lawns where citizens sat cooling after the day’s labour, or a tinkle of laughter from where maidens dull (not being Julia) sat on verandas vacant of beauty and glamour. For these poor things, Noble felt a wondering and disdainful pity; he pitied everything in the world that was not on the way to starry Julia.
Eight nights had passed since he, himself, had seen her, but to-day she had replied (over the telephone) that Mr. Atwater seemed to have settled down again, and she believed it might be no breach of tact for Noble to call that evening — especially as she would be on the veranda, and he needn’t ring the bell. Would she be alone — for once? It was improbable, yet it could be hoped.
But as he came hoping up the street, another already sat beside Julia, sharing with her the wicker settee on the dim porch, and this was the horn-rimmed young poet. Newland had, as usual, a new poem with him; and as others had proved of late that they could sit on Julia’s veranda as long as he could, he had seized the first opportunity to familiarize her with this latest work.
The veranda was dark, and to go indoors to the light might have involved too close a juxtaposition to peculiar old Mr. Atwater who was in the library; but the resourceful Newland, foreseeing everything, had brought with him a small pocket flashlight to illumine his manuscript. “It’s vers libre, of course,” he said as he moved the flashlight over the sheets of scribbled paper. “I think I told you I was beginning to give all the old forms up. It’s the one new movement, and I felt I ought to master it.”
“Of course,” she said sympathetically, though with a little nervousness. “Be just a wee bit careful with the flashlight — about turning it toward the window, I mean — and read in your nice low voice. I always like poetry best when it’s almost whispered. I think it sounds more musical that way, I mean.”
Newland obeyed. His voice was hushed and profoundly appreciative of the music in itself and in his poem, as he read:
“I — And Love!
Lush white lilies line the pool
Like laces limned on looking-glasses!
I tread the lilies underfoot,
Careless how they love me!
Still white maidens woo me,
Win me not!
But thou!
Thou art a cornflower
Sapphire-eyed!
I bend!
Cornflower, I ask a question.
O flower, speak — —”
Julia spoke. “I’m afraid,” she said, while Newland’s spirit filled with a bitterness extraordinary even in an interrupted poet;— “I’m afraid it’s Mr. Dill coming up the walk. We’ll have to postpone — —” She rose and went to the steps to greet the approaching guest. “How nice of you to come!”
Noble, remaining on the lowest step, clung to her hand in a fever. “Nice to come!” he said hoarsely. “It’s eight days — eight days — eight days since — —”
“Mr. Sanders is here,” she said. “It’s so dark on this big veranda people can hardly see each other. Come up and sit with us. I don’t have to introduce you two men to each other.”
She did not, indeed. They said “H’lo, Dill” and “H’lo Sanders” in a manner of such slighting superiority that only the utmost familiarity could have bred a contempt so magnificent. Then, when the three were seated, Mr. Sanders thought well to add: “How’s rent collecting these days, Dill? Still hustling around among those darky shanties over in Bucktown?”
In the dark Noble moved convulsively, but contrived to affect a light laugh, or a sound meant for one, as he replied, in a voice not entirely under control: “How’s the ole poetry, Sanders?”
“What?” Newland demanded sharply. “What did you say?”
“I said: ‘How’s the ole po
etry?’ Do you read it to all your relations the way you used to?”
“See here, Dill!”
“Well, what you want, Sanders?”
“You try to talk about things you understand,” said Newland. “You better keep your mind on collecting four dollars a week from some poor coloured widow, and don’t — —”
“I’d rather keep my mind on that!” Noble was inspired to retort. “Your Aunt Georgina told my mother that ever since you began thinkin’ you could write poetry the life your family led was just — —”
Newland interrupted. He knew the improper thing his Aunt Georgina had said, and he was again, and doubly, infuriated by the prospect of its repetition here. He began fiercely:
“Dill, you see here — —”
“Your Aunt Georgina said — —”
Both voices had risen. Plainly it was time for someone to say: “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Julia glanced anxiously through the darkness of the room beyond the open window beside her, to where the light of the library lamp shone upon a door ajar; and she was the more nervous because Noble, to give the effect of coolness, had lit an Orduma cigarette.
She laughed amiably, as if the two young gentlemen were as amiable as she. “I’ve thought of something,” she said. “Let’s take the settee and some chairs down on the lawn where we can sit and see the moon.”
“There isn’t any,” Noble remarked vacantly.
“Let’s go, anyhow,” she said cheerily. “Come on.”
Her purpose was effected; the belligerents were diverted, and Noble lifted the light wicker settee. “I’ll carry this,” he said. “It’s no trouble. Sanders can carry a chair — I guess he’d be equal to that much.” He stumbled, dropped the settee, and lifted a basket, its contents covered with a newspaper. “Somebody must have — —”
“What is it?”
“It’s a basket,” said Noble.
“How curious!”
Julia peered through the darkness. “I wonder who could have left that market basket out here. I suppose — —” She paused. “Our cook does do more idiotic things than — I’ll go ask her if it’s ours.”
She stepped quickly into the house, leaving two concentrations of inimical silence behind her, but she returned almost immediately, followed by Kitty Silver.
“It’s no use to argue,” Julia was saying as they came. “You did your marketing and simply and plainly left it out there because you were too shiftless to — —”
“No’m,” Mrs. Silver protested in a high voice of defensive complaint. “No’m, Miss Julia, I ain’ lef no baskit on no front po’che! I got jus’ th’ee markit baskits in the livin’ worl’ an’ they ev’y las’ one an’ all sittin’ right where I kin lay my han’s on ’em behime my back do’. No’m, Miss Julia, I take my solemn oaf I ain’ lef no — —” But here she debouched upon the porch, and in spite of the darkness perceived herself to be in the presence of distinguished callers. “Pahdon me,” she said loftily, her tone altering at once, “I beg leaf to insis’ I better take thishere baskit back to my kitchen an’ see whut-all’s insiden of it.”
With an elegant gesture she received the basket from Noble Dill and took the handle over her ample forearm. “Hum!” she said. “Thishere ole basket kine o’ heavy, too. I wunner whut-all she is got in her!” And she groped within the basket, beneath the newspaper.
Now, it was the breath of Kitty Silver’s life to linger, when she could, in a high atmosphere; and she was a powerful gossip, exorbitantly interested in her young mistress’s affairs and all callers. Therefore it was beyond her not to seize upon any excuse that might detain her for any time whatever in her present surroundings.
“Pusserve jugs,” she said. “Pusserve or pickle. Cain’t tell which.”
“You can in the kitchen,” Julia said, with pointed suggestion. “Of course you can’t in the dark.”
But still Mrs. Silver snatched at the fleeting moment and did not go. “Tell by smellin’ ’em,” she murmured, seemingly to herself.
With ease she unscrewed the top of one of the jars; then held the open jar to her nose. “Don’t smell to me exackly like no pusserves,” she said. “Nor yit like no pickles. Don’t smell to me — —” She hesitated, sniffed the jar again, and then inquired in a voice quickly grown anxious: “Whut is all thishere in thishere jug? Seem like to me — —”
But here she interrupted herself to utter a muffled exclamation, not coherent. Instantly she added some words suitable to religious observances, but in a voice of passion. At the same time, with a fine gesture, she hurled the jar and the basket from her, and both came in contact with the wall, not far away, with a sound of breakage.
“Why, what — —” Julia began. “Kitty Silver, are you crazy?”
But Kitty Silver was moving hurriedly toward the open front door, where appeared, at that moment, Mr. Atwater in his most irascible state of peculiarity.
He began: “What was that heathenish — —”
Shouting, Mrs. Silver jostled by him, and, though she disappeared into the house, a trail of calamitous uproar marked her passage to the kitchen.
“What thing has happened?” Mr. Atwater demanded. “Is she —— ?”
His daughter interrupted him.
“Oh!” was all she said, and sped by him like a bit of blown thistledown, into the house. He grasped at her as she passed him; then suddenly he made other gestures, and, like Kitty Silver, used Jacobean phrases. But now there were no auditors, for Noble Dill and Newland Sanders, after thoughtlessly following a mutual and natural impulse to step over and examine the fallen basket, had both gone out to the street, where they lingered a while, then decided to go home.
... Later, that evening, Florence and Herbert remembered the c’lection; so they came for it, a mistake. Discovering the fragments upon the veranda, they made the much more important mistake of entering the house to demand an explanation, which they received immediately. It was delivered with so much vigour, indeed, that Florence was surprised and hurt. And yet, the most important of her dreamy wishes of the afternoon had been fulfilled: the c’lection had been useful to Noble Dill, for Mr. Atwater had smelled the smell of an Orduma cigarette and was just on the point of coming out to say some harsh things, when the c’lection interfered. And as Florence was really responsible for its having been in a position to interfere, so to say, she had actually in a manner protected her protégé and also shown some of that power of which she had boasted when she told him that sometimes she made members of her family “step around pretty lively.”
Another of her wishes appeared to be on the way to fulfilment, too. She had hoped that something memorable might be done with the c’lection, and the interview with her grandfather, her Aunt Julia, and Kitty Silver seemed to leave this beyond doubt.
CHAPTER TEN
NOW AUGUST CAME, that florid lazy month when mid-summer dawdles along in trailing greeneries, and the day is like some jocund pagan, all flushed and asleep, with dripping beard rosy in a wine bowl of fat vine leaves. Yet, in this languorous time there may befall a brisker night, cool and lively as an intrusive boy — a night made for dancing. On such a night a hasty thought might put it as desirable that all the world should be twenty-two years old and in love, like Noble Dill.
Upon the white bed in his room, as he dressed, lay the flat black silhouettes of his short evening coat and trousers, side by side, trim from new pressing; and whenever he looked at them Noble felt rich, tall, distinguished, and dramatic. It is a mistake, as most literary legends are mistakes, to assume that girls are the only people subject to before-the-party exhilaration. At such times a girl is often in the anxious yet determined mood of a runner before a foot race, or she may be merely hopeful; some are merry and some are grim, but arithmetical calculation of some sort, whether glorious or uneasy, is busy in their eyes as they pin and pat before their mirrors. To behold romance gone light-headed, turn to the humbler sort of man-creature under twenty-three. Alone in his room, he may enact for you scenes of flowe
ry grace and most capricious gallantry, rehearsals as unconscious as the curtsies of field daisies in a breeze. He has neither doubt nor certainty of his charm; he has no arithmetic at all, and is often so free of calculation that he does not even pull down the shades at his windows.
Unfortunately for the neighbours, and even for passers-by, since Noble’s room had a window visible from the street, his prophetic mother had closed his shutters before he began to dress. Thus she deprived honest folk of what surely must have been to them the innocent pleasure of seeing a very young man in light but complete underwear, lifting from his head a Panama hat, new that day, in a series of courteous salutations. At times, during this same stage of his toilet, they might have had even more entertainment: — before putting on his socks Noble “one-stepped” for several minutes, still retaining upon his head the new hat. This was a hat of double value to him; not only was it pleasant to behold in his mirror, but it was engaged in solidifying for the evening the arrangement of his hair.
It may be admitted that he was a little giddy, for the dance was Julia’s. Mr. Atwater had been summoned to New York on a blessed business that would keep him a fortnight, and his daughter, alert to the first flash of opportunity, had almost instantly summoned musicians, florists, a caterer, and set plans before them. Coincidentally, Noble had chanced to see Mr. Atwater driving down Julia’s Street that morning, a travelling bag beside him, and, immediately putting aside for the day all business cares, hurried to the traveller’s house. Thus he forestalled, for the time being, that competition which helped to make caring for Julia so continuous a strain upon whatever organ is the seat of the anxieties. Kind Julia, busy as she was, agreed to dance the first dance with him, and the last — those being considered of such significance that he would be entitled to the perquisites of a special cavalier; for instance, a seat beside her during the serving of the customary light repast. In such high fortune, no wonder he was a little giddy as he dressed!
The process of clothing himself was disconnected, being broken by various enacted fancies and interludes. Having approached the length of one sock toward the completion of his toilet, he absently dropped the other upon the floor, and danced again; his expression and attitude signifying that he clasped a revered partner. Releasing her from this respectful confinement, he offered the invisible lady a gracious arm and walked up and down the room with a stateliness tempered to rhythm, a cakewalk of strange refinement. Phrases seemed to be running in his head, impromptus symbolic of the touching and romantic, for he spoke them half aloud hi a wistful yet uplifted manner. “Oh, years!” he said. “Oh, years so fair; oh, night so rare!” Then he added, in a deeper voice:
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 315