“Ma’am?” said Tuttle in plaintive astonishment.
“I think you’ve been drinking.”
“No, lady! No!”
“I’m sure you have. I don’t believe in doing any« thing for people that drink; it doesn’t do them any good.”
“Lady—” Tuttle began, and he was about to continue his protest to her, when her husband interfered.
“Run along!” he said, and tossed the applicant for nourishment a dime.
Tuttle looked sadly at the little round disk of silver as it lay shining in his asphalt coloured palm; then he looked at the donor and murmured: “I ast fer bread — and they give me a stone!”
“Go along!” said the man.
Tuttle went slowly, seeming to be bowed in thoughtful melancholy; he went the more reluctantly because there was a hint of fried chicken on the air; and before he reached the pavement a buxom fair woman, readily guessed to be of Scandinavian descent, appeared in the doorway. “Dinner’s served, Mrs. Pinney,” she called briskly.
Tuttle turned and looked at Mrs. Pinney with eloquence, but she shook her head disapprovingly. “You ought to sign the pledge!” she said.
“Yes, lady,” he said, and abruptly turned away. He walked out into the street, where a trolley car at that moment happened to stop for another passenger, jumped on the step, waved his hand cordially, and continued to wave it as the car went down the street.
“Well of all!” Mrs. Pinney exclaimed, dumfounded, but her husband laughed aloud.
“That’s a good one!” he said. “Begged for ‘nourishment’ and when I gave him a dime went off for a street-car ride! Come on in to dinner, ma; I guess he’s passed out of our lives!”
Nothing was further from Mr. Tuttle’s purpose, however; and Mr and Mrs. Pinney had not finished their dinner, half an hour later, when he pushed the bell-button in their small vestibule, and the buxom woman opened the door, but not invitingly, for she made the aperture a narrow one when she saw who stood before her.
“Howdydo,” he said affably. “Ole lady still here, isn’t she?”
“What you want?” the woman inquired.
“Jest ast her to look this over,” he said, and proffered a small paper-bound Bible, open, with a card between the leaves. “I’ll wait here,” he added serenely, as she closed the door.
She took the Bible to the dining-room, and handed it to Mrs. Pinney, remarking, “That tramp’s back. He says to give you this. He’s waitin’.”
The Bible was marked with a rubber stamp: “Presented by Door of Hope Rescue Mission 337 South Maryland Street,” and the card was a solemn oath and pledge to refrain from intoxicants, thenceforth and forever. It was dated that day, and signed, in ink still almost wet, “Arther T. De Morris.”
Mrs. Pinney stared at the pledge, at first frowningly, then with a tendency toward a slight emotion; and without speaking” she passed it to her husband for inspection, whereupon he became incredulous enough to laugh.
“That’s about the suddenest conversion on record, I guess!” he said. “Used the dime to get down to the Door of Hope and back before our dinner was over. It beats all!”
“You don’t think it could be genuine, Henry?”
“Well, no; not in twenty minutes.”
“It could be — just possibly,” she said gently. “We never know when the right word may touch some poor fellow’s heart.”
“Now, ma,” he remonstrated, “don’t you go and get one of your spells of religious vanity. That was about as tough an old soak as I ever saw, and I’m afraid it’ll take more than one of your ‘right words’ to convert him.”
“Still—” she said, and a gentle pride showed in her expression. “We can’t tell. It seems a little quick, of course, but he may have been just at the spiritual point for the right word to reach him. Anyhow, he did go right away and get a pledge and sign it — and got a Bible, too. It might be — I don’t say it probably is, but it just might be the beginning of a new life for him, and it wouldn’t be right to discourage him. Besides he must really be hungry: he’s proved that, anyhow.” She turned to the woman in waiting. “Give him back the Bible and his card, Tilly,” she said, “and take him out in the kitchen and let him have all he wants to eat. Tell him to wait when he gets through; and you let me know; I’ll come and talk to him. His name’s Mr. De Morris, Tilly, when you speak to him.”
Tilly’s expression was not enthusiastic, but she obeyed the order, conducted the convert to the kitchen and set excellent food before him in great plenty; whereupon Mr. Tuttle, being not without gallantry, put his hat on the floor beside his chair, and thanked her warmly before he sat down. His appetite was now vigorous, and at first he gave all his attention to the fried chicken, but before long he began to glance appreciatively, now and then, at the handmaiden who had served him. She was a wellshaped blonde person of thirty-five or so, tall, comely, reliable looking, visibly energetic, and, like her kitchen, incredibly clean. His glances failed to interest her, if she took note of them; and presently she made evident her sense of a social gulf. She prepared a plate for herself, placed it upon a table across the room from him and sat there, with her profile”’ toward him, apparently unconscious of his presence.
“Plenty room at my table,” he suggested hospitably. “I jest as soon you eat over here.”
“No,” she said discouragingly.
Not abashed, but diplomatic, he was silent for a time, then he inquired casually, “Do all the work here?”
“Yep.”
“Well, well,” he said. “You look too young fer sech a rough job. Don’t they have nobody ‘tend the furnace and cut the grass?”
“Did,” said Tilly. “Died last week.”
“Well, ain’t that too bad! Nice pleasant feller was he?”
“Coloured man,” said Tilly.
“You Swedish?” Tuttle inquired.
“No. My folks was.”
“Well sir, that’s funny,” Tuttle said genially, “I knowed they was somep’n Swedish about you, because I always did like Swedish people. I don’t know why, but I always did taken a kind o’ likin’ to Swedish people, and Swedish people always taken kind of a likin’ to me. My ways always seem to suit Swedish people — after we git well acquainted I mean. The better Swedish people git acquainted with me the more they always seem to taken a likin’ to me. I ast a Swedish man oncet why it was he taken sech a likin’ to me and he says it was my ways. ‘It’s jest your ways, George,’ he says. ‘It’s because Swedish people like them ways you got, George,’ he says.” Here Tuttle laughed deprecatingly and added, “I guess he must ‘a’ be’n right, though.”
Tilly made no response; she did not even glance at him, but continued gravely to eat her dinner. Then, presently, she said, without any emphasis: “I thought your name was Arthur.”
“What?”
“That pledge you signed,” Tilly said, still not looking at him, but going on with her dinner; “ain’t it signed Arthur T. De Morris?”
For the moment Mr. Tuttle was a little demoralized, but he recovered himself, coughed, and explained. “Yes, that’s my name,” he said. “But you take the name George, now, it’s more kind of a nickname I have when anybody gits real well acquainted with me like this Swedish man I was tellin’ you about; and besides that, it was up in Dee-troit. Most everybody I knowed up in Dee-troit, they most always called me George fer a nickname like. You know anybody in Dee-troit?”
“No.”
“Married?” Tuttle inquired.
“No.”
“Never be’n?” he said.
“No.”
“Well, now, that’s too bad,” he said sympathetically. “It ain’t the right way to live. I’m a widower myself, and I ain’t never be’n the same man since I lost my first wife. She was an Irish lady from Chicago.” He sighed; finished the slice of lemon pie Tilly had given him, and drank what was left of his large cup of coffee, holding the protruding spoon between two fingers to keep it out of his eye. He set the cup down,
gazed upon it with melancholy, then looked again at the unresponsive Tilly.
She had charm for him; and his expression, not wholly lacking a kind of wistfulness, left no doubt of it. No doubt, too, there fluttered a wing of fancy somewhere in his head: some picture of what might-have-been trembled across his mind’s-eye’s field of vision. For an instant he may have imagined a fireside, with such a competent fair creature upon one side of it, himself on the other, and merry children on the hearth-rug between. Certainly he had a moment of sentiment and sweet longing.
“You ever think about gittin’ married again?” he said, rather unfortunately.
“I told you I ain’t been married.”
“Excuse me!” he hastened to say. “I was thinkin’ about myself. I mean when I says ‘again’ I was thinkin’ about myself. I mean I was astin’ you: You think about gittin’ married at all?”
“No.”
“I s’pose not,” he assented regretfully; and added in a gentle tone: “Well, you’re a mighty fine-lookin’ woman; I never see no better build than what you got on you.”
Tilly went out and came back with Mrs. Pinney, who mystified him with her first words. “Well, De Morris?” she said.
“What?” he returned blankly, then luckily remembered, and said, “Oh, yes, ma’am?”
“I hope you meant it when you signed that pledge, De Morris.”
“Why, lady, of course I did,” he assured her warmly. “If the truth must be told, I don’t never drink hardly at all, anyways. Now we got prohibition you take a poor man out o’ work, why where’s he goin’ to git any liquor, lady? It’s only rich people that’s usually able to git any reel good stew on, these days, if I’m allowable to used the expression, so to speak. But that’s the unfairness of it, and it makes poor people ready to break out most anytime. Not that it concerns me, because I put all that behind me when I signed the pledge like you told me to. If the truth must be told, I was goin’ to sign the pledge some time back, but I kep’ kind o’ puttin’ it off. Well, lady, it’s done now, and I’m thankful fer it.”
“I do hope so, I’m sure,” Mrs. Pinney said earnestly. “And I want to help you; I’ll be glad to. You said you wanted some work.”
“Yes’m,” he said promptly, and if apprehension rose within him he kept it from appearing upon the surface. Behind Mrs. Pinney stood Tilly, looking straight at him with a frigid skepticism of which he was fully conscious. “Yes’m. Any honest work I can turn my hand to, that’s all I ast of anybody. I’d be glad to help wash the dishes if it’s what you had in your mind, lady.”
“No. But if you’ll come back to-morrow morning about nine or ten o’clock, I’ll give you two dollars for cutting the grass. It isn’t a very large yard, and you can get through by evening.”
“I ain’t got no lawn-mower, lady.”
“We have one in the cellar,” said Mrs. Pinney. “If you come back, Tilly’ll have it on the back porch for you. That’s all to-day, De Morris.”
“All right, lady. I thank you for your hospitillity and I’ll be back in the morning,” he said, and as he turned toward the door he glanced aside at Tilly and saw that her mouth quivered into the shape of a slight smile — a knowing smile. “I will!” he said defiantly. “I’ll be back here at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. You’ll see!”
But when the door closed behind him, Tilly laughed aloud — and was at once reproved by her mistress. “We always ought to have faith that the better side of people will conquer, Tilly. I really think he’ll come.”
“Yes’m, like that last one ‘t said he was comin’ back, and stole the knife and fork he ate with,” said Tilly, laughing again.
“But this one didn’t steal anything.”
“No’m, but he’ll never come back, to work,” said Tilly. “He said ‘You’ll see,’ and you will, but you won’t see him!”
They had a mild argument upon the point, and then Mrs. Pinney returned to her husband, who was waiting for her to put on her Sunday wrap and hat, and go with him to spend their weekly afternoon among the babies at their son’s house. She found her husband to be strongly of Tilly’s opinion, and when they came home that evening, she renewed the argument with both of them; so that this mild and orderly little household was slightly disturbed (a most uncommon thing in its even life) over the question of the vagrant’s return. Thus, Mrs. Pinney prepared a little triumph for herself; — at ten o’clock the next morning Tuttle opened the door of Tilly’s bright kitchen and inquired:
“Where’s that lawn-mower?”
He was there. He had defeated the skeptic and proved himself a worthy man, but at a price; for again he was far from well, and every movement he made increased well-founded inward doubts of his constitution. Unfortunately, he had taken his flask of White Mule to bed with him in his limousine, and in that comfortable security moderation had seemed useless to the verge of absurdity. The point of knowing when to say no rests in the “when;” and when a man is already at home and safe in bed, “Why, my Glory!” he had reasoned it, “Why, if they ever is a time to say yes, it must be then!” So he had said “Yes,” to the White Mule and in the morning awoke feeling most perishable. Even then, as in the night, from time to time he had vagrant thoughts of Tilly and her noble build, of the white and shining kitchen, and of those disbelieving cool blue eyes that seemed to triumph over him and indict him, accusing him of things she appeared to think he would do if he had the chance. There was something in her look that provoked him, as if she would stir his conscience, and though his conscience disturbed him no more than a baby’s disturbs a baby, he was indeed somewhat disquieted by that cold look of hers. And so, when he had collected his mind a little, upon waking, he muttered feebly. “I’ll show her!” Something strange and forgotten worked faintly within him, fluttered a little; and so, walking carefully, he kept his word and came to her door.
She looked at him in a startled way. Unquestionably he caused her to feel something like an emotion, and she said not a word, but went straightway and brought him the lawn-mower. He looked in her eyes as he took it from her hand.
“You thought I wouldn’t come,” he said.
“Yes,” she admitted gravely.
“Well,” he said, and smiled affably, “you certainly got a fine build on you!” And with that, pushing the lawn-mower before him, he went out to his work, leaving her visibly not offended.
“You showed her!” he said to himself.
In the yard he looked thoughtfully upon the grass, which was rather long and had not been cut since the spring had enlivened it to a new growing. The lot seemed longer than it had the day before; he saw that it must be two hundred feet from the street on which it fronted to the alley in the rear; it was a hundred feet wide, at least, and except for the area occupied by the house, which was of modest proportions, all of this was grass. He sighed profoundly: “Oh, Gosh!” he mourned. But he meant to do the work, and began it manfully.
With the mower rolling before him, reversed, the knives upward, he went to the extreme front of the lot, turned the machine over, and, surveying the prospect, decided to attack the lawn with long straight swathes, running from the front clear through to the alley — though, even before he began, the alley seemed far, far away. However, he turned up the sleeves of his ancient coat an inch or two, and went at his task with a good heart. That is to say, he started with a good heart, but the lawn-mower was neither new nor sharp; the grass was tough, the sun hot, and his sense of unwellness formidable. When he had gone ten feet, he paused, wiped his forehead with a sleeve, and leaned upon the handle of the mower in an attitude not devoid of pathos. But he was yet determined; he thought of the blue eyes in the kitchen and resolved that they should not grow scornful again. Once more he set the mower in motion.
Mrs. Pinney heard the sound of it in her room upstairs, looked from the window, and with earnest pleasure beheld the workman at his toil. Her heart rejoiced her to have been the cause of a reformation, and presently she went down to the kitchen to gloat ge
ntly over a defeated antagonist in argument.
“Yes’m,” Tilly admitted meekly. “He fooled me.”
“You see I was right, Tilly. We always ought to have faith that the best part of our natures will conquer.”
“Yes’m; it looks so.”
“Have we some buttermilk in the refrigerator, Tilly?”
“Yes’m.”
“Then I think you might have some ready for him, if he gets too hot. I don’t think he looks very well and you might ask him if he’d like some. You might ask him now, Tilly.”
“Now?” Tilly asked, and coloured a little. “You mean right now, Mrs. Pinney?”
“Yes. It might do him good and help keep him strong for his work.”
“All right,” Tilly said, and turned toward the icebox; but at a thought she paused. “I don’t hear the lawn-mower,” she said. “It seems to me I ain’t heard it since we began talking.”
“Perhaps he’s resting,” Mrs. Pinney suggested, but her voice trembled a little with foreboding. “We might just go out and see.”
They went out and saw. Down the full length of the yard, from the street to the alley, there was one long swathe of mowed grass; and but one, though it was perfect. Particularly as the trail of a fugitive it was perfect, and led straight to the alley, which, being paved with brick, offered to the searchers the complete bafflement of a creek to the bloodhound. A brick alley shows no trace of a reversed lawn-mower hurrying over it — yet nothing was clearer than that such a hurrying must have taken place. For Arther T. De Morris was gone, and so was the lawn-mower.
“Mr. Pinney’ll laugh at me I guess, too!” Mrs. Pinney said, swallowing, as she stood with Tilly, staring at the complete vacancy of the brick alley.
“Yes’m, he will,” said Tilly, and laughed again, a little harshly.
The fugitive, already some blocks distant, propelled the ravished mower before him, and went so openly through the streets in the likeness of an honest toiler seeking lawns to mow that he had to pause and decline several offers, on his hurried way. He took note of these opportunities, however, remembering the friend he was on his way to see, and, after some difficulty, finding him in a negro pool-room, proffered him the lawn-mower in exchange for five dollars, spot cash.
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 492