Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “I ain’ got it,” replied Bojus, flaccid upon a bench. “I ain’ feelin’ like cuttin’ nobody’s grass to-day, nohow, an’ besides I’m goin’ stay right here till coas’ clear. Mamie ain’ foun’ out who make all her trouble, ‘cause I dim’ out the window whiles she was engage’ kickin’ on cellah do’; but neighbours say she mighty s’picious-who ’twas. I don’ need no lawn-mo’ in a pool-room!”

  “Well, you ain’t goin’ to stay in no pool-room forever; you got to git out and earn your livin’ some time,” Tuttle urged him. “Every man that’s got the gumption of a man, he’s got to do that!” And upon Bojus’s lifeless admission of the truth of this statement, the bargaining began. It ended with Bojus’s becoming the proprietor of the lawn-mower and Tuttle’s leaving the pool-room after taking possession of everything in the world that Bojus owned except a hat, a coat, a pair of trousers, a shirt, two old shoes and four safety-pins. The spoil consisted of seventy-eight cents in money, half of a package of bent cigarettes, a pair of dice, a “mouth-organ” and the peculiar diamond ring.

  This latter Mr. Tuttle placed upon his little finger, and as he walked along he regarded it with some pleasure; but he decided to part with it, and carried it to a pawn-shop he knew, having had some acquaintance with the proprietor in happier days.

  He entered the place with a polite air, removing his hat and bowing, for the shop was a prosperous one.

  “Golly!” said the proprietor, who happened to be behind a counter, instructing a new clerk. “I believe it’s old George the hackman.”

  “That’s who, Mr. Breitman,” Tuttle responded. “Many’s the cold night I yousta drive you all over town and—”

  “Never mind, George,” the pawnbroker interrupted crisply. “You payin’ me just a social call, or you got some business you want to do?”

  “Business,” said Tuttle. “If the truth must be told, Mr. Breitman, I got a diamon’ ring worth somewheres along about five or six thousand dollars, I don’t know which.”

  Breitman laughed, “Oh, you got a ring worth either five or six thousand, you don’t know which, and you come in to ask me to settle it. Is that it?”

  “Yes. I don’t want to hock her; I jest want to git a notion if I ever do decide to sell her.” He set the ring upon the glass counter before Breitman. “Ain’t she a beauty?”

  Breitman glanced at the ring and laughed, upon which the owner hastily protested: “Oh, I know the ring part ain’t gold: you needn’t think I don’t know that much! It’s the diamon’ I’m talkin’ about. Jest set your eye on her.”

  The pawnbroker set his eye on her — that is, he put on a pair of spectacles, picked up the ring and looked at it carelessly, but after his first glance his expression became more attentive. “So you say I needn’t think you don’t know the ‘ring part’ ain’t gold, George? So you knew it was platinum, did you?”

  “Of course, I knowed it was plapmun,” Tuttle said promptly, rising to the occasion, though he had never before heard of this metal. “I reckon I know plapmun when I see it.”

  “I think it’s worth about ten or twelve dollars,” Breitman said. “I’ll give you twelve if you want to sell it.”

  Eager acceptance rushed to Tuttle’s lips, but hung there unspoken as caution checked him. He drew a deep breath and said huskily, “Why, you can’t fool me on this here ring, Mr. Breitman. I ain’t worryin’ about what I can git fer the plapmun part; all I want to know is how much I ought ast fer the diamon’. I ain’t fixin’ to sell it to you; I’m fixin’ to sell it to somebody else.”

  “Oh, so that’s it,” said Breitman, still looking at the ring. “Where’d you get it?”

  Tuttle laughed ingratiatingly. “It’s kind of funny,” he said, “how I got that ring. Yet it’s all open and above-board, too. If the truth must be told, it belonged to a lady-cousin o’ mine in Auburndale, Wisconsin, and her aunt-by-marriage left it to her. Well, this here lady-cousin o’ mine, I was visitin’ her last summer, and she found I had a good claim on the house and lot she was livin’ in, account of my never havin’ knowed that my grandfather — he was her grandfather, too — well, he never left no will, and this house and lot come down to her, but I never made no claim on it because I thought it had be’n willed to her till I found out it hadn’t, when I went up there. Well, the long and short of it come out like this: the house and lot’s worth about nine or ten thousand dollars, but she didn’t have no money, so she handed me over this ring to settle my claim. Name’s Mrs. Moscoe, Mrs. Wilbur N. Moscoe, three-thirty-two South Liberty Street, Auburndale, Wisconsin.”

  “I see,” Breitman said absently. “Just wait here a minute, George; I ain’t going to steal it.” And, taking the ring with him, he went into a room behind the shop, remaining there closeted long enough for Tuttle to grow a little uneasy.

  “Hay!” he called. “You ain’t tryin’ to eat that plapmun ring are you, Mr. Breitman?”

  Breitman appeared in the doorway. There was a glow in his eyes, and although he concealed all other traces of a considerable excitement, somehow Tuttle caught a vibration out of the air, and began to feel the presence of Fortune. “Step in here and sit down, George,” the pawnbroker said. “I wanted to look at this stone a little closer, and of course I had to go over my lists and see if it was on any of ’em.”

  “What lists?” Tuttle asked as he took a chair. “From the police. Stolen goods.”

  “Looky here! I told you how that ring come to me. My cousin ain’t no crook. Her name’s Mrs. Wilbur N. Moscoe, South Liberty Street, Aubumd—”

  “Never mind,” Breitman interrupted. “I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t so. Anyway, this ring ain’t on any of the lists and—”

  “I should say it ain’t!”

  “Well, don’t get excited. Now look here, George” — Breitman seated himself close to his client and spoke in a confidential tone— “George, you know I always took a kind of interest in you, and I want to tell you what you need. You ought to go get yourself all fixed up. You ought to go to a barber’s and get your hair cut and your whiskers trimmed. Don’t go to no cheap barber’s; go to a good one, and tell ’em to fix your whiskers so’s you’ll have a Van Dyke—”

  “A what?”

  “A Van Dyke beard. It’s swell,” said Breitman. “Then you go get you a fine pearl-gray Fedora hat, with a black band around it, and a light overcoat, and some gray gloves with black stitching, and a nice cane and a nobby suit o’ clo’es and some fancy top shoes—”

  “Listen here!” Tuttle said hoarsely, and he set a shaking hand on the other’s knee, “how much you willin’ to bid on my plapmun ring?”

  “Don’t go so fast!” Breitman said, but his eyes were becoming more and more luminous. He had the hope of a great bargain; yet feared that Tuttle might have a fairly accurate idea of the value of the diamond. “Hold your hosses a little, George!

  You don’t need so awful much to go and get yourself fixed up like I’m tellin’ you, and you’ll have a lot o’ money left to go around and see high life with.

  I’ll send right over to the bank and let you have it in cash, too, if you meet my views.”

  “How much?” Tuttle gasped. “How much?”

  Breitman looked at him shrewdly. “Well, I’m takin’ chances: the market on stones is awful down these days, George. Your cousin must have fooled you bad when she talked about four or five thousand dollars! That’s ridiculous!”

  “How much?”

  “Well, I’ll say! — I’ll say seven hundred and fifty dollars.”

  Tuttle’s head swam. “Yes!” he gasped.

  No doubt as he began that greatest period in his whole career, half an hour later, he thought seriously of a pair of blue eyes in a white kitchen; — seven hundred and fifty dollars, with a competent Swedish wife to take care of it and perhaps set up a little shop that would kept her husband out of mischief and busy — But there the thought stopped short and his expression became one of disillusion: the idea of orderliness and energy and profit was no
t appetizing. He had seven hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket; and Tuttle knew what romance could come to him instantly at the bidding of this illimitable cash: he knew where the big crap games were; he knew where the gay flats and lively ladies were; he knew where the fine liquor gurgled — not White Mule; he knew how to find the lights, the lights and the music!

  Forthwith he approached that imperial orgy of one heaped and glorious week, all of high-lights, that summit of his life to be remembered with never-failing pride when he went back, after it was all over, to his limousine and the shavings.

  It was glorious straight through to the end, and the end was its perfect climax: the most dazzling memory of all. He forgave automobiles, on that last day, and in the afternoon he hired a splendid, red new open car, with a curly-haired chauffeur to drive it. Then driving to a large hardware store he spent eighteen dollars, out of his final fifty, upon the best lawn-mower the store could offer him. He had it placed in the car and drove away, smoking a long cigar in a long holder. Such was his remarkable whim; and it marks him as an extraordinary man.

  That nothing might be lacking, his destiny arranged that Mrs. Pinney was superintending Tilly in the elimination of dandelions from the front yard when the glittering equipage, to their surprise, stopped at the gate. Seated beside the lawn-mower in the tonneau they beheld a superb stranger, portly and of notable presence. His pearl-gray hat sat amiably upon his head; the sleeves of his fawn-coloured overcoat ran pleasantly down to pearl gloves; his Van Dyke beard, a little grizzled, conveyed an impression of distinction not contradicted by a bagginess of the eyelids; for it is strangely true that dissipation sometimes even adds distinction to certain types of faces. All in all, here was a man who might have recalled to a student of courts some aroma of the entourage of the late King Edward at Hombourg. There was just that about him.

  He alighted slowly — he might well have been credited with the gout — and entering the yard, approached with a courteous air, being followed by the chauffeur, who brought the lawn-mower.

  “Good afternoon, lady and Tilly,” he said, in a voice unfortunately hoarse; and he removed his pearl-gray hat with a dignified gesture.

  They stared incredulously, not believing their eyes.

  “I had a little trouble with your lawn-mower, so I up and got it fixed,” he said. “It’s the same one. I took and got it painted up some.”

  “Oh, me!” Tilly said, in a whisper. “Oh, me!” And she put her hand to her heart.

  He perceived that he dazzled her; that she felt deeply; and almost he wished, just for this moment, to be sober. He was not — profoundly not — yet he maintained his dignity and his balance throughout the interview. “I thought you might need it again some day,” he said.

  “Mis-ter De Mor-ris!” Mrs. Pinney cried, in awed recognition. “Why, what on earth —— — —”

  “Nothin’,” he returned lightly. “Nothin’ at all.” He waved his hand to the car. “One o’ my little automobiles,” he said.

  With that he turned, and, preceded by the chauffeur, walked down the path to the gate. Putting his whole mind upon it, he contrived to walk without wavering; and at the gate, he paused and looked wistfully back at Tilly. “You certainly got a good build on you,” he said.

  Then beautifully and romantically he concluded this magnificent gesture — this unsolvable mystery story that the Pinneys’ very grandchildren were to tell in after years, and that kept Tilly a maiden for many months in the hope of the miraculous stranger’s return — at least to tell her who and what he was!

  He climbed into the car, placed the long holder of the long cigar in his mouth, and, as the silent wheels began to turn, he took off his hat again and waved it to them graciously.

  “I kept the pledge!” he said.

  THE PARTY

  THE THOUGHTS OF a little girl are not the thoughts of a little boy. Some will say that a little girl’s thoughts are the gentler; and this may be, for the boy roves more with his tribe and follows its hardier leaders; but during the eighth or ninth year, and sometimes a little earlier, there usually becomes evident the beginning of a more profound difference. The little girl has a greater self-consciousness than the boy has, but conceals hers better than he does his; moreover, she has begun to discover the art of getting her way indirectly, which mystifies him and outrages his sense of justice. Above all, she is given precedence and preference over him, and yet he is expected to suppress what is almost his strongest natural feeling, and be polite to her! The result is that long feud between the sexes during the period running from the ages of seven and eight to fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, when reconciliation and reconstruction set in — often rapidly.

  Of course the period varies with individuals; —

  however, to deal in averages, a male of five will play with females of similar age almost as contentedly as with other males, but when he has reached eight, though he may still at times “play with girls,” he feels a guilt, or at least a weakness, in doing so; for within him the long hatred has begun to smoulder.

  Many a parent and many an aunt will maintain that the girls are passive, that it is the boys who keep the quarrel alive, though this is merely to deny the relation between cause and result, and the truth is that the boys are only the noisier and franker in the exchange of reciprocal provocations. And since adults are but experienced children, we find illumination upon such a point in examples of the feud’s revival in middle age; for it is indeed sometimes revived, even under conditions of matrimony. A great deal of coldness was shown to the suburban butcher who pushed his wife into his sausage vat. “Stay!” the philosopher protested. “We do not know what she had said to him.”

  The feud is often desultory and intermittent; and of course it does not exist between every boy and every girl; a Montagu may hate the Capulets with all his vitals, yet feel an extraordinary kindness toward one exceptional Capulet. Thus, Master Laurence Coy, nine, permitted none to surpass him in hating girls. He proclaimed his bitterness, and made the proclamation in public. (At a party in his own house and given in his own honour, with girls for half his guests, he went so far as to state — not in a corner, whispering, but in the centre of the largest room and shouting — that he hated every last thing about ’em. It seemed that he wished to avoid ambiguity.) And yet, toward one exceptional little girl he was as water.

  Was what he felt for Elsie Threamer love? Naturally, the answer must depend upon a definition of the word; and there are definitions varying from the frivolous mots tossed off by clergymen to the fanatical dogmas of coquettes. Mothers, in particular, have their own definitions, which are so often different from those of their sons that no one will ever be able to compute the number of mothers who have informed sons, ranging in age from fourteen to sixty-two, that what those sons mistook for love, and insisted was love, was not love. Yet the conclusion seems to be inevitable that behind all the definitions there is but one actual thing itself; that it may be either a force, or a condition produced by a force, or both; and that although the phenomena by which its presence may be recognized are of the widest diversity, they may be somewhat roughly classified according to the ages of the persons affected. Finally, a little honest research will convince anybody that these ages range from seven months to one hundred and thirty-four years; and if scriptural records are accepted, the latter figure must be much expanded.

  Hence there appears to be warranted accuracy in the statement that Laurence Coy was in a state of love. When he proclaimed his hatred of all girls and every last thing about ’em, that very proclamation was produced by his condition — it was a phenomenon related to the phenomena of crime, to those uncalled-for proclamations of innocence that are really the indications of guilt. He was indeed inimical to all other girls; but even as he declared his animosity, he hoped Elsie was noticing him.

  Whenever he looked at her, he swallowed and had a warm but sinking sensation in his lower chest. If he continued to be in her presence for some time — that is, for more than
four or five minutes — these symptoms were abated but did not wholly disappear; the neck was still a little uneasy, moving in a peculiar manner at intervals, as if to release itself from contact with the collar, and there was a feeling of looseness about the stomach.

  In absence, her image was not ever and always within his doting fancy shrined; far from it! When he did think of her, the image was fair, doubtless; yet he had in mind nothing in particular he wished to say to its original. And when he heard that she had the scarlet fever, he did not worry. No, he only wondered if she could see him from a window as he went by her house, and took occasion to pass that way with a new kite. Truth to say, here was the gist of his love in absence; it consisted almost entirely of a wish to have her for an audience while he performed; and that’s not so far from the gist of divers older loves.

  In her presence it was another matter; self-consciousness expanded to the point of explosion, for here was actually the audience of his fragmentary day-dreams, and great performances were demanded. Just at this point, however, there was a difficulty; — having developed neither a special talent nor even a design of any kind, he was forced back upon the more rudimentary forms of self-expression. Thus it comes about that sweet love itself will often be found the hidden cause of tumults that break up children’s parties.

  The moment of Elsie’s arrival at Laurence’s party could have been determined by an understanding person even if Elsie had been invisible to that person. Until then Laurence was decorous, greeting his arriving guests with a little arrogance natural to the occasion, since this was his own party and on his own premises; but the instant his glance fell upon the well-known brazen glow of apparently polished curls, as Elsie came toward him from the hall where she had left her pretty hat and little white coat, his decorum vanished conspicuously.