Seventeen (Tarkington, 1916)/Chapter 12

RS. BAXTER'S little stroke of diplomacy had gone straight to the mark, she was a woman of insight. For every reason she was well content to have her son spend his evenings at home, though it cannot be claimed that his presence enlivened the household, his condition being one of strange, trancelike irascibility. Evening after evening passed, while he sat dreaming painfully of Mr. Parcher's porch; but in the daytime, though William did not literally make hay while the sun shone, he at least gathered a harvest somewhat resembling hay in general character.

Thus:

One afternoon, having locked his door to secure himself against intrusion on the part of his mother or Jane, William seated himself at his writing-table, and from a drawer therein took a small cardboard box, which he uncovered, placing the contents in view before him upon the table. (How meager, how chilling a word is "contents"!) In the box were:

A faded rose. Several other faded roses, disintegrated into leaves. Three withered "four-leaf clovers." A white ribbon still faintly smelling of violets. A small silver shoe-buckle. A large pearl button. A small pearl button. A tortoise-shell hair-pin. A cross-section from the heel of a small slipper. A stringy remnant, probably once an improvised wreath of daisies. Four or five withered dandelions. Other dried vegetation, of a nature now indistinguishable.

William gazed reverently upon this junk of precious souvenirs; then from the inner pocket of his coat he brought forth, warm and crumpled, a lumpish cluster of red geranium blossoms, still aromatic and not quite dead, though naturally, after three hours of such intimate confinement, they wore an unmistakable look of suffering. With a tenderness which his family had never observed in him since that piteous day in his fifth year when he tried to mend his broken doll, William laid the geranium blossoms in the cardboard box among the botanical and other relics.

His gentle eyes showed what the treasures meant to him, and yet it was strange that they should have meant so much, because the source of supply was not more than a quarter of a mile distant, and practically inexhaustible. Miss Pratt had now been a visitor at the Parchers' for something less than five weeks, but she had made no mention of prospective departure, and there was every reason to suppose that she meant to remain all summer. And as any foliage or anything whatever that she touched, or that touched her, was thenceforth suitable for William's museum, there appeared to be some probability that autumn might see it so enlarged as to lack that rarity in the component items which is the underlying value of most collections.

William's writing-table was beside an open window, through which came an insistent whirring, unagreeable to his mood; and, looking down upon the sunny lawn, he beheld three lowly creatures. One was Genesis; he was cutting the grass. Another was Clematis; he had assumed a transient attitude, curiously triangular, in order to scratch his ear, the while his anxious eyes never wavered from the third creature.

This was Jane. In one hand she held a little stack of sugar-sprinkled wafers, which she slowly but steadily depleted, unconscious of the increasingly earnest protest, at last nearing agony, in the eyes of Clematis. Wearing unaccustomed garments of fashion and festivity, Jane stood, in speckless, starchy white and a blue sash, watching the lawn-mower spout showers of grass as the powerful Genesis easily propelled it along over lapping lanes, back and forth, across the yard.

From a height of illimitable loftiness the owner of the cardboard treasury looked down upon the squat commonplaceness of those three lives. The condition of Jane and Genesis and Clematis seemed almost laughably pitiable to him, the more so because they were unaware of it. They breathed not the starry air that William breathed, but what did it matter to them? The wretched things did not even know that they meant nothing to Miss Pratt!

Clematis found his ear too pliable for any great solace from his foot, but he was not disappointed; he had expected little, and his thoughts were elsewhere. Rising, he permitted his nose to follow his troubled eyes, with the result that it touched the rim of the last wafer in Jane's external possession.

This incident annoyed William. "Look there!" he called from the window. "You mean to eat that cake after the dog's had his face on it?"

Jane remained placid. "It wasn't his face."

"Well, if it wasn't his face, I'd like to know what—"

"It wasn't his face," Jane repeated. "It was his nose. It wasn't all of his nose touched it, either. It was only a little outside piece of his nose."

"Well, are you going to eat that cake, I ask you?"

Jane broke off a small bit of the wafer. She gave the bit to Clematis and slowly ate what remained, continuing to watch Genesis and apparently unconscious of the scorching gaze from the window.

"I never saw anything as disgusting as long as I've lived!" William announced. "I wouldn't 'a' believed it if anybody'd told me a sister of mine would eat after—"

"I didn't," said Jane. "I like Clematis, anyway."

"Ye gods!" her brother cried. "Do you think that makes it any better? And, by the way," he continued, in a tone of even greater severity, "I'd a like to know where you got those cakes. Where'd you get 'em, I'd just like to inquire?"

"In the pantry." Jane turned and moved toward the house. "I'm goin' in for some more, now."

William uttered a cry; these little cakes were sacred. His mother, growing curious to meet a visiting lady of whom (so to speak) she had heard much and thought more, had asked May Parcher to bring her guest for iced tea, that afternoon. A few others of congenial age had been invited: there was to be a small matinée, in fact, for the honor and pleasure of the son of the house, and the cakes of Jane's onslaught were part of Mrs. Baxter's preparations. There was no telling where Jane would stop; it was conceivable that Miss Pratt herself might go waferless.

William returned the cardboard box to its drawer with reverent haste; then, increasing the haste, but dropping the reverence, he hied himself to the pantry with such advantage of longer legs that within the minute he and the wafers appeared in conjunction before his mother, who was arranging fruit and flowers upon a table in the "living-room."

William entered in the stained-glass attitude of one bearing gifts. Overhead, both hands supported a tin pan, well laden with small cakes and wafers, for which Jane was silently but repeatedly and systematically jumping. Even under the stress of these efforts her expression was cool and collected; she maintained the self-possession that was characteristic of her.

Not so with William; his cheeks were flushed, his eyes indignant. "You see what this child is doing?" he demanded. "Are you going to let her ruin everything?"

"Ruin?" Mrs. Baxter repeated, absently, refreshing with fair water a bowl of flowers upon the table. "Ruin?"

"Yes, ruin!" William was hotly emphatic, "If you don't do something with her it 'll all be ruined before Miss Pr— before they even get here!" Mrs. Baxter laughed. "Set the pan down, Willie."

"Set it down?" he echoed, incredulously "With that child in the room and grabbing like—"

"There!" Mrs. Baxter took the pan from him, placed it upon a chair, and with the utmost coolness selected five wafers and gave them to Jane. "I'd already promised her she could have five more. You know the doctor said Jane's digestion was the finest he'd ever misunderstood. They won't hurt her at all, Willie."

This deliberate misinterpretation of his motives made it difficult for William to speak. "Do you think," he began, hoarsely, "do you think—"

"They're so small, too," Mrs. Baxter went on. "She probably wouldn't be sick if she ate them all."

"My heavens!" he burst forth. "Do you think I was worrying about—" He broke off, unable to express himself save by a few gestures of despair. Again finding his voice, and a great deal of it, he demanded: "Do you realize that Miss Pratt will be here within less than half an hour? What do you suppose she'd think of the people of this town if she was invited out, expecting decent treatment, and found two-thirds of the cakes eaten up before she got there, and what was left of 'em all mauled and pawed over and crummy and chewed-up lookin' from some wretched child?" Here William became oratorical, but not with marked effect, since Jane regarded him with unmoved eyes, while Mrs. Baxter continued to be mildly preoccupied in arranging the table. In fact, throughout this episode in controversy the ladies' party had not only the numerical but the emotional advantage. Obviously, the approach of Miss Pratt was not to them what it was to William. "I tell you," he declaimed;—"yes, I tell you that it wouldn't take much of this kind of thing to make Miss Pratt think the people of this town were—well, it wouldn't take much to make her think the people of this town hadn't learned much of how to behave in society and were pretty uncilivized!" He corrected himself. "Uncivilized! And to think Miss Pratt has to find that out in my house! To think—"

"Now, Willie," said Mrs. Baxter, gently, "you'd better go up and brush your hair again before your friends come. You mustn't let yourself get so excited."

"'Excited!'" he cried, incredulously. "Do you think I'm excited? Ye gods!"

He smote his hands together and, in his despair of her intelligence, would have flung himself down upon a chair, but was arrested half-way by simultaneous loud outcries from his mother and Jane.

"Don't sit on the !" they both screamed.

Saving himself and the pan of wafers by a supreme contortion at the last instant, William decided to remain upon his feet. "What do I care for the cakes?" he demanded, contemptuously, beginning to pace the floor. "It's the question of principle I'm talking about! Do you think it's right to give the people of this town a poor name when strangers like Miss Pratt come to vis—"

"Willie!" His mother looked at him hopelessly. "Do go and brush your hair. If you could see how you've tousled it you would."

He gave her a dazed glance and strode from the room.

Jane looked after him placidly. "Didn't he talk funny!" she murmured.

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Baxter. She shook her head and uttered the enigmatic words, "They do."

"I mean Willie, mamma," said Jane. "If it's anything about Miss Pratt. he always talks awful funny. Don't you think Willie talks awful funny if it's anything about Miss Pratt, mamma?"

"Yes, but—"

"What, mamma?" Jane asked as her mother paused.

"Well—it happens. People do get like that at his age, Jane."

"Does everybody?"

"No, I suppose not everybody. Just some."

Jane's interest was roused. "Well, do those that do, mamma," she inquired, "do they all act like Willie?"

"No," said Mrs. Baxter. "That's the trouble; you can't tell what's coming."

Jane nodded. "I think I know," she said. "You mean Willie—"

William himself interrupted her. He returned violently to the doorway, his hair still tousled, and, standing upon the threshold, said, sternly:

"What is that child wearing her best dress for?"

"Willie!" Mrs. Baxter cried. "Go brush your hair!"

"I wish to know what that child is all dressed up for?" he insisted.

"To please you! Don't you want her to look her best at your tea?"

"I thought that was it!" he cried, and upon this confirmation of his worst fears he did increased violence to his rumpled hair. "I suspected it, but I wouldn't 'a' believed it! You mean to let this child—you mean to let—" Here his agitation affected his throat and his utterance became clouded. A few detached phrases fell from him: "—Invite my friends—children's party—ye gods!—think Miss Pratt plays dolls—"

"Jane will be very good," his mother said. "I shouldn't think of not having her, Willie, and you needn't bother about your friends; they'll be very glad to see her. They all know her, except Miss Pratt, perhaps, and—" Mrs. Baxter paused; then she asked, absently: "By the way, haven't I heard somewhere that she likes pretending to be a little girl, herself?"

"What!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Baxter, remaining calm; "I'm sure I've heard somewhere that she likes to talk 'baby-talk.'"

Upon this a tremor passed over William, after which he became rigid. "You ask a lady to your house," he began, "and even before she gets here, before you've even seen her, you pass judgment upon one of the—one of the noblest—"

"Good gracious! I haven't 'passed judgment.' If she does talk 'baby-talk,' I imagine she does it very prettily, and I'm sure I've no objection. And if she does do it, why should you be insulted by my mentioning it?"

"It was the way you said it," he informed her, icily.

"Good gracious! I just said it!" Mrs. Baxter laughed, and then, probably a little out of patience with him, she gave way to that innate mischievousness in such affairs which is not unknown to her sex. "You see, Willie, if she pretends to be a cunning little girl, it will be helpful to Jane to listen and learn how."

William uttered a cry; he knew that he was struck, but he was not sure how or where. He was left with a blank mind and no repartee. Again he dashed from the room.

In the hall, near the open front door, he came to a sudden halt, and Mrs. Baxter and Jane heard him calling loudly to the industrious Genesis:

"Here! You go cut the grass in the back yard, and for Heaven's sake, take that dog with you!"

"Grass awready cut roun' back," responded the amiable voice of Genesis, while the lawnmower ceased not to whir. "Cut all 'at back yod 's mawnin'."

"Well, you can't cut the front yard now. Go around in the back yard and take that dog with you."

"Nemmine 'bout 'at back yod! Ole Clem ain' trouble nobody."

"You hear what I tell you?" William shouted. "You do what I say and you do it quick!"

Genesis laughed gaily. "I got my grass to cut!"

"You decline to do what I command you?" William roared.

"Yes, indeedy! Who pay me my wages? 'At's my boss. You' ma say, 'Genesis, you git all 'at lawn mowed b'fo' sundown.' No, suh! Nee'n' was'e you' bref on me, 'cause I'm got all my time good an' took up!"

Once more William presented himself fatefully to his mother and Jane. "May I just kindly ask you to look out in the front yard?"

"I'm familiar with it, Willie," Mrs. Baxter returned, a little wearily.

"I mean I want you to look at Genesis."

"I'm familiar with his appearance, too," she said. "Why in the world do you mind his cutting the grass?"

William groaned. "Do you honestly want guests coming to this house to see that awful old darky out there and know that he's the kind of servants we employ? Ye gods!"

"Why, Genesis is just a neighborhood outdoors darky, Willie; he works for half a dozen families besides us. Everybody in this part of town knows him."

"Yes," he cried, "but a lady that didn't live here wouldn't. Ye gods! What do you suppose she would think? You know what he's got on!"

"It's a sort of sleeveless jersey he wears, Willie, I think."

"No, you don't think that!" he cried, with great bitterness. "You know it's not a jersey! You know perfectly well what it is, and yet you expect to keep him out there when—when one of the one of the nobl—when my friends arrive! And they'll think that's our dog out there, won't they? When intelligent people come to a house and see a dog sitting out in front, they think it's the family in the house's dog, don't they?" William's condition becoming more and more disordered, he paced the room, while his agony rose to a climax. "Ye gods! What do you think Miss Pratt will think of the people of this town, when she's invited to meet a few of my friends and the first thing she sees is a nigger in his undershirt? What 'll she think when she finds that child's eaten up half the food, and the people have to explain that the dog in the front yard belongs to the darky—" He interrupted himself with a groan: "And prob'ly she wouldn't believe it. Anybody'd say they didn't own a dog like that! And that's what you want her to see, before she even gets inside the house! Instead of a regular gardener in livery like we ought to have, and a bulldog or a good Airedale or a fox-hound, or something, the first things you want intelligent people from out of town to see are that awful old darky and his mongrel scratchin' fleas and like as not lettin' 'em get on other people! That'd be nice, wouldn't it? Go out to tea expecting decent treatment and get fl—"

"Willie!"

Mrs. Baxter managed to obtain his attention. "If you'll go and brush your hair I'll send Genesis and Clematis away for the rest of the afternoon. And then if you 'll sit down quietly and try to keep cool until your friends get here, I'll—"

"'Quietly'!" he echoed, shaking his head over this mystery. "I'm the only one that is quiet around here. Things 'd be in a fine condition to receive guests if I didn't keep pretty cool, I guess!"

"There, there," she said, soothingly. "Go and brush your hair. And change your collar, Willie; it's all wilted. I'll send Genesis away."

His wandering eye failed to meet hers with any intelligence. "Collar," he muttered, as if in soliloquy. "Collar."

"Change it!" said Mrs. Baxter, raising her voice. "It's wilted."

He departed in a dazed manner.

Passing through the hall, he paused abruptly, his eye having fallen with sudden disapproval upon a large, heavily framed, glass-covered engraving, "The Battle of Gettysburg," which hung upon the wall, near the front door. Undeniably, it was a picture feeble in decorative quality; no doubt, too, William was right in thinking it as unworthy of Miss Pratt, as were Jane and Genesis and Clematis. He felt that she must never see it, especially as the frame had been chipped and had a corner broken, but it was more pleasantly effective where he found it than where (in his nervousness) he left it. A few hasty jerks snapped the elderly green cords by which it was suspended; then he laid the picture upon the floor and with his handkerchief made a curious labyrinth of avenues in the large oblong area of fine dust which this removal disclosed upon the wall. Pausing to wipe his hot brow with the same implement, he remembered that some one had made allusions to his collar and hair, whereupon he sprang to the stairs, mounted two at a time, rushed into his own room, and confronted his streaked image in the mirror.