“Pingity, pingity, ping. Ur-r-r-r-r-ping!”
The voice was that of Renfrew’s nine-year-old sister Daisy; and looking round and down, he discovered her crouching low behind his chair, firing continuously. Renfrew perceived that he was a fortification of some sort; for although the presence of a grown person has naturally a stultifying effect upon children, they readily forget him if he remains in his own sphere; then he becomes but part of their landscape; they will use him as a castle, or perhaps as a distant Indian. Renfrew was now a log cabin.
“Ping! Ping! Pingety ur-r-r-r-r-ping!” Daisy shrieked from behind him. “You’re all dead! Lay down!”
“You’re dead yourself,” Robert Eliot retorted. “I guess all us four filled you fuller o’ wounds than you did us, didn’t we? Lay down yourself!”
“I won’t!” And Daisy, rising, began to argue the question vehemently. “I saw you all the time when you came around the house. I shot you first, didn’t I? Wasn’t I sayin’
‘Ping,’ before ever any one of you said ‘Bang?’”
“No, you wasn’t,” Laurence Coy hotly replied. “Why, if we’d of had real guns, they wouldn’t be enough left o’ you to bury in a hen’s nest.”
“They would, too!” Daisy shouted. “If I’d had a real gun, they wouldn’t be enough left of you to bury in half a hen’s nest!”
“They would, too!” Laurence retorted, and his comrades in arms loudly echoed him. “They would, too!” they shouted.
“You’re dead!” Daisy insisted. “You got to all four lay down. You got to!”
But upon this they raised such a chorus of jeering that she stamped her foot. “You got to!” she cried.
“Listen!” said Laurence. “Listen here! I killed you myself, first thing when we came around the house. I leave it to Elsie Threamer.”
He referred to the one other little girl who was present, though she took no part in these military encounters and seemed, in fact, to disapprove of them. Fastidiously remaining at a distance from the belligerents, she sat alone upon the steps of the large front porch — a dainty little figure in strong contrast to the strident Daisy. Elsie was in smooth and unspotted white linen; and Daisy, too, had been in smooth and unspotted white linen — for a few minutes — but this one point of resemblance was now lost. Elsie was a beautiful child, whereas even the fonder of Daisy’s two grandmothers had never gone so far as to say that Daisy was a beauty. Elsie was known for her sweet disposition, though some people thought that living next door to Daisy was injuring it. When Elsie came into a room where grown people were, they looked pleased; when Daisy came into a room where grown people were, they looked at their watches.
“Yes,” said Robert Eliot, confirming Master Coy’s choice of an umpire. “I leave it to Elsie. Whoever Elsie says is dead, why, they got to be dead.”
“Leave it to Elsie,” the other boys agreed. “Daisy’s dead, isn’t she, Elsie?”
“I am not!” Daisy cried. “I don’t care what Elsie says. I killed every last one of you, and if you don’t lay down, I’ll make you.”
“You will?” the bulky Robert inquired. “How you goin’ to make us?”
“I’ll frow you down,” said the determined Daisy; and she added vindictively: “Then I’ll walk all over you!”
The enemy received this with unanimous hootings. “Yes, you will!” Laurence Coy boasted satirically. “Come on and try it if you don’t know any better!” And he concluded darkly: “Why, you wouldn’t live a minute!”
“Anyway,” Daisy insisted, “I won’t leave it to Elsie, whether I’m dead or not.”
“You got to,” said Laurence, and walking toward Elsie, he pointed to Daisy, and spoke with some deference. “Tell her she’s dead, Elsie.”
Elsie shook her head. “I doe’ care ‘nything about it,” she said coldly. “I doe’ care whether she’s dead or whether she isn’t.”
“But she didn’t kill us, did she, Elsie?” Laurence urged her. “Our side’s alive, isn’t it, Elsie?”
“I do#’ care whether you are or whether you’re not,” the cold and impartial Miss Threamer returned. “I doe’ care ‘nything about it which you are.”
“I am not dead!” Daisy shouted, jumping up and down as she pranced toward the steps where sat the indifferent judge. “I doe’ care if Elsie says I’m dead a thousan’ times, I guess I got my rights, haven’t I?”
“No, you haven’t,” Robert Eliot informed her harshly.
“I have, too!” she cried. “I have, too, got my rights.”
“You haven’t, either,” Laurence said. “You haven’t got any rights. Whatever Elsie says is goin’ to be the rights.”
Daisy strained her voice to its utmost limits: “I got my RIGHTS!” she bawled.
They crowded about Elsie, arguing, jeering, gesticulating, a shrill and active little mob; meanwhile Elsie, seated somewhat above them, rested her chin on her clean little hand, and looked out over their heads with large, far-away eyes that seemed to take no account of them and their sordid bickerings. And Renfrew, marking how aloof from them she seemed, was conscious of a vague resemblance; Elsie, like Muriel, seemed to dwell above the common herd.
Then, as she watched the clamorous group, he noticed that whenever Laurence Coy appealed to Elsie, his voice, though loud, betrayed a certain breathlessness, while frequently after speaking to her he opened his mouth and took in a little air, which he then swallowed with some difficulty, his neck becoming obviously uneasy. Indeed, this symptom was so pronounced that Renfrew, observing it with great interest, felt that there was something reminiscent about it — that is, it reminded him of something; he could not think just what. But he began to feel that Laurence perceived that Elsie was on a higher plane.
Elsie seemed to think so herself. “I doe’ care ‘nything about it,” remained her unaltered verdict. “I doe’ care a thing which is dead or which isn’t.”
“Well, then,” said Laurence Coy, “we might as well play somep’m else.”
“All right,” Daisy agreed. “Le’s play I’m a grea’ big Injun woyer, an’ all the rest of you are children I got to come an’ scalp.”
Her proposal met with no general favour — with no favour at all, in fact. “For heaven’s sakes!” Thomas Kimball said. “I’d like to know what you take us for!” And in this scornful view he was warmly seconded by all his fellows.
“Well, this is my yard,” Daisy reminded them severely. “I guess as long as you’re in my yard, you’ll please be p’lite enough to play what I say. I guess I got some rights in my own yard, haven’t I?”
“I guess you better remember you ast us over here to play with you,” Laurence Coy retorted, and his severity was more than equal to hers. “We never came an’ ast you if we could, did we? You better learn sense enough to know that long as you ast us, we got a right to play what we want to, because we’re company, an’ we aren’t goin’ to play have you scalp us!”
“You haf to,” Daisy insisted. “I got a perfect right to play what I want to in my own yard.”
“You go on play it, an’ scalp yourself, then,” Laurence returned ungallantly. “Elsie, what you want to play?”
“I doe’ want to play rough games,” Elsie said. “I doe’ like those fighting games.”
“Well, what do you like?”
“Well, nice quiet games,” she replied. “I’d be willing to play school.”
“How do you play it?”
“Well, I’d be willing to be the teacher,” she said. “You all sit down in a row, an’ I’ll say what punishments you haf to have.”
Daisy instantly objected. “No, I’ll be the teacher!”
“You won’t!” Laurence said. “Elsie’s got to be the teacher because she’s company, an’ anyway she said so first.” And the majority agreeing to this, it was so ordered; whereupon Daisy, after some further futile objections, took her place with the boys. They sat in a row upon the grass, facing Elsie, who stood on the steps confronting them.
“
Now, the first thing to do,” she said, “I better find out who’s the worst; because you every one been very, very naughty an’ deserve the terrablest punishments I can think of. I haf to think what I’m goin’ to do to you.” She paused, then pointed at Laurence. “Laurence Coy, you’re the very worst one of this whole school.”
“What did I do?” Laurence inquired.
“You said you hated girls.”
“Well, I did say that,” he admitted; and then, lest his comrades suspect him of weakening, he added: “I hate every last thing about ’em!”
“I bet you don’t,” said Daisy Mears, giggling. Laurence blushed. “I do!” he shouted. “I hate every last—”
“Hush!” said the teacher. “That’s very, very, very naughty, and you haf to be punished. You haf to be — well, I guess you haf to be spanked.”
“I doe’ care!” Laurence said, seeming to forget that this was only a game. “I hate girls and every last thing about ’em!”
“Hush!” Elsie said again. “I ‘point Robert Eliot and Freddie Mears monitors. Robert must hold you while Freddie spanks you.”
But Daisy jumped up, uncontrollably vociferous. “No, no!” she shouted. “I’m goin’ to be a monitor! This is my yard, an’ I guess I got some rights around here! Robert can hold him, but I got to spank him.”
“Very well,” said Elsie primly. “I ‘point Daisy in Freddie’s place.”
Master Coy did not take this well; he rose and moved backward from the enthusiastic Daisy. “I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t let her spank me.”
“You haf to,” Daisy told him, clapping her hands. “You haf to do whatever Elsie says. You said so yourself; you said she had to be the teacher, an’ we haf to do whatever she tells us.”
“I won’t!” he responded doggedly, for now he felt that his honour was concerned. “I won’t do it!”
“Robert Eliot!” Elsie said reprovingly. “Did you hear me ‘point you a monitor to hold Laurence while he’s punished?”
“You better keep away from me,” Laurence warned Robert, as the latter approached, nothing loth. “I won’t do it!”
“I’m goin’ to do it,” said Daisy. “All you haf to do is hold still.”
“I won’t!” said Laurence.
“I guess I better do it with this,” Daisy remarked, and, removing her left slipper as she and Robert continued their advance upon Laurence, she waved it merrily in the air. “What you so ‘fraid of, Laurence?” she inquired boastingly. “This isn’t goin’ to hurt you — much!”
“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “And you better put it back where it was if you ever want to see it again.
I’ll take that ole slipper, an’ I’ll—”
“Teacher!” Daisy called, looking back to where Elsie stood. “Didn’t you say this naughty boy had to be spanked?”
“Yes, I did,” Elsie replied. “You hurry up and do it!”
Her voice was sweet; yet she spoke with sharpness, even with a hint of acidity, which the grown-up observer, forgotten by the children, noted with some surprise. Renfrew had been sure that he detected in Master Coy the symptoms of a tender feeling for Elsie. Laurence had deferred to her, had been the first to appeal to her when she sat aloof, had insisted that she should choose the game to play, and when she had chosen, hotly championed her claim to be the “teacher.” Above all was the difference in his voice when he spoke to her, and that swallowing of air, that uneasiness of the neck. Renfrew was sure, too, that Elsie herself must be at least dimly aware of these things, must have some appreciation of the preference for her that they portended — and yet when she was given authority, her very first use of it was to place Master Coy in a position unspeakably distasteful to himself. Sometimes children were impossible to understand, Renfrew thought — and so were some grown people, he added, in his mind, with a despondent glance across the street.
Having glanced that way, his eyes came to rest upon the open window of a room upstairs, where the corner of a little satinwood writing-table was revealed — Muriel’s, he knew. Branches of a tall maple tree gave half the window a rococo frame, and beyond this bordering verdure sometimes he had caught glimpses of a graceful movement, shadowy within the room — a white hand would appear for an instant moving something on the desk, or adjusting the window-shade for a better light; or at the best, it might be half revealed, half guessed, that Muriel was putting on her hat at a mirror. But this befell only on days when she was in a gentle mood with him, and so it was seldom. Certainly it was not to-day, though she might be there; for when she was gloomiest about her environment (of which he was so undeniably a part) she might indeed sit at that charming little satinwood table to write, but sat invisible to him, the curtains veiling her. Of course, at such times, there was only one thing left for Renfrew to do, and legend offers the parallel of the niggardly mother who locked up the butter in the pantry, but let her children rub their dry bread on the knob of the pantry door. Renfrew could look at the window.
The trouble was that when he looked at it, he was apt to continue to look at it for an indefinite period of time, during which his faculties lost their usefulness; people whom he knew might pass along the sidewalk, nod graciously to him, and then, not realizing his condition, vow never to speak again to so wooden a young snob. And into such a revery — if revery it were that held no thoughts, no visions, but only the one glamorous portrait of an empty window — he fell to-day. The voices of the children, sharp with purpose, shrill with protest, but died in his tranced ear as if they came from far away. The whole summer day, the glancing amber of the sunshine, the white clouds ballooning overhead between the tree-tops, the warm touch and smell of the air — these fell away from his consciousness. “He’s nothing,” the lonely poetess brusquely wrote of him; and now, for the time, it was almost true, since he was little more than a thought of a vacant window.
When Renfrew was in this jellied state, something rather unusual was needed to rouse him — though a fire-department ladder-truck going by, with the gong palavering, had done it. What roused him to-day were sounds less metallic, but comparable in volume and in certain ways more sensational. As he stood, fixed upon the window, he slowly and vaguely became aware that the children seemed to be excited about something. Like some woodland dreamer who discovers that a crow commune overhead has been in hot commotion for some time without his noticing it, he was not perturbed, but gradually wakened enough to wonder what the matter was. Then he turned and looked mildly about him.
His sister Daisy still held her slipper, but it was now in her left hand; in her right she had a shingle. Accompanied by Robert Eliot, she was advancing in a taunting manner upon Laurence Coy; and all three, as well as the rest of the children, may be described as continuously active and poignantly vociferous. Master Coy had armed himself with a croquet mallet, and his face expressed nothing short of red desperation; he was making a last stand. He warned the world that he would not be responsible for what he did with this mallet.
Master Eliot also had a mallet; he and Daisy moved toward Laurence, feinting, charging and retreating, while the other children whooped, squealed, danced and gave shrill advice how the outlaw might best be taken.
Daisy was the noisiest of all. “I’ll show you, Mister Laurence Coy!” she cried. “You went an’ tore my collar, an’ you hit me with your elbow on my nose, an’—”
“I’m glad I did!” Laurence returned.
“It hurts me, too!” Daisy proclaimed.
“I’m glad it does! You had no business to grab me, an’ I’m glad!”
“We’ll show you!” she promised him. “Soon as we get hold of you I’m goin’ to spank you till this shingle’s all wore out, an’ then I’m goin’ to keep on till my slipper’s all wore out, an’ then I’m goin’ to take off my other slipper an’—”
“Look, Daisy!” Elsie Threamer cried. “While Robert keeps in front of him, why don’t you go round behind him? Then you could grab his mallet, and Robert could throw him down.”
At this the dreamy Renfrew looked at Elsie in a moderate surprise. Elsie, earlier so aloof upon her higher plane, was the lady who had objected to roughness; it was she who said she didn’t like “those fighting games.” Yet here she was now, dancing and cheering on the attack, as wolfish as the rest, as intent as any upon violence to the unfortunate Laurence. Nay, it was she who had devised and set in motion the very engine for his undoing.
“Get behind him, Daisy,” she squealed. “That’ll fix him!”
“She better not get behind me!” the grim Laurence warned them. “Her ole nose got one crack already to-day, an’ if it gets another—”
“I’ll take care o’ that, Mister Laurence Coy!” Daisy assured him. “I’ll look after my own nose, I kinely thank you.”
“Yes, you will!” he retorted bitterly. “It ain’t hardly big enough to see it, an’ I bet if it comes off on this mallet, nobody could tell it was gone.”
“I’ll — I’ll show you!” Daisy returned, finding no better repartee, though she evidently strove. “I’ll pay you with this paddle for every one of your ole insulks!”
“Run behind him!” Elsie urged her. “Why didn’t you run behind and grab him?”
“You watch!” Daisy cried. “You keep pokin’ at him in front, Robert.” And she darted behind Laurence, striking at the swinging mallet with her shingle.
But Laurence turned too, pivoting; and as he did, Robert Eliot, swinging his own weapon, rushed forward. The two mallets clattered together; there was a struggle — a confused one, for there were three parties to it, Daisy seeming to be at once the most involved and the most vigorous of the three. Her left arm clung about Laurence’s neck, with the sole of her slipper pressed against his face, which he strove hard to disengage from this undesirable juxtaposition; her right arm rose and fell repeatedly, producing a series of muffled sounds.
“I’ll show you!” she said. “I’ll show you whose nose you better talk about so much!”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 508