Chapter V: Part 5

“We’ll change the subject,” Lucius repeated. “I gather that this one is painful to you. You don’t mind my staying here if we talk about something else?”

“No—not much.”

“I mentioned that I asked Mary Ricketts to go with me to the band concert to-night, didn’t I?” Mr. Allen inquired, as he lit his cigar. “I was telling you about that, wasn’t I, Joe?”

“You said something about it,” Mr. Perley replied with evident ennui.

“You know, Joe,” said Lucius, his tone becoming confidential, “I walk past the old Ricketts property every afternoon on my way home. It’s quite considerable out of my way, but I always do. Fact is,” he chuckled ruefully, “I can’t help it.”

“I suppose you want me to ask you why,” said his gloomy companion, with sincere indifference.

“Yes, Joe, will you?”

“All right. Why can’t you help it?”

“Well, there’s something about that old place so kind of pleasant and healthy and reliable. This is a funny world: there’s a lot of things a fellow’s got to be afraid of in it, and the older he gets the more he sees to scare him. I think what I like best about that old Ricketts property is the kind of _safe_ look it has. It looks as if anybody that belonged in there was safe from ’most any kind of disaster—bankruptcy, lunacy, ‘social ambition,’ money ambition, evil thoughts, or turning into a darn fool of any kind. You don’t happen to walk by there much, do you, Joe?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, sir, you ought to!” said Lucius genially. “The orchard’s in bloom, and you ought to see it. The Ricketts orchard is the show of this county. The good old judge has surely looked after those old apple-trees of his; they’re every one just solid blossom. Yes, sir, every last one! Why, it made me feel like a dryad!”

“Like a who?”

“You mean that I’m thirty-five”—so Mr. Allen thought fit to interpret this question—“and that I’m getting a little fat, some baldish and a whole lot reddish. So I am; but I’ll tell you something, young Joseph: romance is a thing inside a person, just the same as your thirst. It doesn’t matter what his outside is like. My trousers always bag at the knees, even when they’re new, but my knees themselves are pure Grecian. It’s the skinny seamstress of forty that dreams the most of marquises in silver armour; and darky boys in school forget the lesson in reveries about themselves—they think of themselves on horseback as generals with white faces and straight blond hair. And everybody knows that the best poets are almost always outrageously ordinary to look at. This is springtime, Joseph; and the wren lays an egg no bigger than a fairy’s. The little birds——”

“By George!” Mr. Perley exclaimed, in real astonishment. “See here!” he said. “Had you been drinking, yourself, before you came in? If not, it’s the first time I knew a person could get a talking jag on buttermilk.”

“No,” said Lucius, correcting him. “It’s on apple-blossoms. She was sitting under ’em pretending to read a book, but I suppose she was thinking about you, Joe.”

“Who was?”

“Mary,” Mr. Allen replied quietly. “Mary Ricketts.”

“You say she was thinking about _me_?”

“Probably she was, Joe. She was sitting there, and the little birds——”

“I know you’re a good lawyer,” Joe interrupted, shaking his head in gloomy wonder, “but everybody in town thinks you’re a nut, except when you’re on a law case, and I guess they’re about right. You certainly talk like one!”

Mr. Allen nodded. “A reputation like that is mighty helpful sometimes.”

“Well, if you like it you’re free to refer all inquirers to me,” said Joe heartily. “You’re trying to tell me Mary Ricketts was ‘thinking’ about me, and I don’t suppose I’ve seen her as much as five times this year; and I haven’t known her—not to speak of—since we were children. I don’t suppose I’ve had twenty minutes’ talk with her, all told, since I got back from college. The only girl I ever see anything of at all is Molly Baker, and that’s only because she happens to live next door. I don’t see even Molly to speak to more than once or twice a month. I don’t have anything to do with _any_ of the girls. I keep _away_ from ’em, because a man with the curse I’ve got hanging over me——”

“Thought you didn’t want to talk about that, Joe.”

“I don’t,” the young man said angrily. “But I want to know what you mean by this nonsense about Mary Ricketts and me.”

“I don’t know if I ought to tell you—exactly.” Here Lucius frowned as with a pressure of conscience. “I’m not sure I ought to. Do you insist on it, Joe?”

“Not if you’ve got to talk any more about ‘the little birds!’” Joe returned with sour promptness. “But if you can leave them out and talk in a regular way, I’d like to hear you.”

“Have you ever noticed,” Mr. Allen began, “that Mary Ricketts is a beautiful girl?”

“She’s not,” said Joe. “She’s not anything like ‘beautiful.’ Everybody in town knows and always has known that Mary Ricketts is an ordinarily good-looking girl. You can call her pretty if you want to stretch it a little, but that’s all.”

“That all, you think?”

“Certainly!”

“You ought to see her in the orchard, Joe!”

“Well, I’m not very likely to.”

“Well, just why not, now?”

“Well, why should I?”

“You mean you’ve never given much thought to her?”

“Certainly I haven’t,” said Joe. “Why should I?”

“Isn’t it strange now!” Mr. Allen shook his head wistfully. “I mentioned that I asked her to go to the band concert with me, didn’t I, Joe?”

“You did.”

“And did I tell you that she refused?”

“Lord, yes!”

“Well, that was it,” said Mr. Allen gently. “She just said, ‘No!’ She didn’t say ‘No, thank you.’ No, sir, nothing like that; just plain ‘No!’ ‘Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘now why is that? Naturally, she’d _want_ to go to the concert, wouldn’t she? Why, of course she would; it’s the first public event that’s happened since the lecture on “Liquid Air” at Masonic Hall, along back in February. Certainly she’d want to go. Well, then, what’s the matter? It must be simply she doesn’t want to go with _you_, Lucius Brutus Allen!’ That’s what I said to myself, Joe. ‘You’re practically a fat old man from _her_ point of view,’ I said to myself. ‘She wants to go, but you aren’t the fellow she wants to go _with_. Well, who is it? Evidently,’ I reasoned, ‘evidently he hasn’t turned up, because she’s just the least bit snappish the way she tells me she isn’t pining for _my_ escort.’ Well, sir, I began to cast around in my mind to think who on earth it could be. ‘It isn’t Henry Wheen,’ I thought, ‘because she discouraged Henry so hard, more than a year ago, that Henry went and married that waitress here at his father’s hotel. And it isn’t Bax Lewis,’ I thought, ‘because she showed Bax _he_ didn’t stand any chance from the first. And it isn’t Charlie McGregor or Cal Veedis,’ I thought, ‘because she just _wouldn’t_ have anything to do with either of them, though they both tried to make her till the judge pretty near had to tell ’em right out that they’d better stay away. Well, it isn’t Doc Willis, and it isn’t Carlos Bollingbroke Thompson, nor Whit Connor,’ I thought, ‘because they’re _old_ bachelors like me—and that just about finishes the list.’ Well, sir, there’s where I had to scratch my head. ‘It must be somebody,’ I thought, ‘somebody that hasn’t been coming around the Ricketts property at all, so far, because she’s never gone any place she could help with those that _have_ been coming around there.’ Then I thought of you, Joe. ‘By George!’ I thought. ‘By George, it might be Joe Perley! He’s the only young man in town not married, engaged, or feeble-minded, that hasn’t ever showed any interest in Miss Mary. There’s no two ways about it: likely as not it’s liable to be Joe Perley!’”

“I never heard anything crazier in my life!” Joe said. “I don’t suppose Mary Ricketts has given me two thoughts in the last five years.”

Mr. Allen tilted back in his chair, his feet upon a rung of the table. He placed his cigar at the left extremity of his mouth, gazed at the ceiling, and waved his right hand in a take-it-or-leave-it gesture.

“Well, _why_ would she?” Joe demanded. “There’s nothing about _me_ that——”

“No,” said his friend. “Nothing except she doesn’t know you very well.”

At that Joe Perley laughed. “You are the funniest old Lucius!” he said. “Just because I’ve never been around there and the rest have, you say that proves——”

Mr. Allen waved his hand again. “I only say there’s _somebody_ could get her to go to that concert with him. Absolutely! Why absolutely? It’s springtime; she’s twenty-three. Of course, if it _is_ you, she isn’t very liable to hear the music except along with her family—not when you’ve got such pressing engagements _here_, of course! I’m thinking of going up there again pretty soon myself, to see if maybe Judge and Mrs. Ricketts aren’t going to walk up-town for the concert, and maybe I can sort of push myself in among the family so that I can walk anyway in the same _group_ with Mary! It’s going to be moonlight, and as balmy as a night in a piece of poetry! By George! you can smell apple-blossoms from one end of the town to the other, Joe!”

“How you hate talking!” Mr. Perley remarked discouragingly.

“I hear the band is going to try ‘Schubert’s Serenade,’” Lucius continued. “The boys aren’t so bad as we make out, after all; the truth is, they play almighty well. I expect you’ll be able to hear some of it from in here, Joe; but take _me_ now—I want to be out in the moonlight in that apple-blossom smell when they play ‘Schubert’s Serenade!’ I want to be somewhere where I can see the moonshine shadow of Mary Ricketts’s hat fall across her cheek, so I can spend my time guessing whether she’s listening to the music with her eyes shut or open. It’s a pink-and-white hat, and she’s wearing a pink-and-white dress, too, to-day, Joe. She was sitting under those apple-blossoms, and the little bir——”

Sudden, loud and strong expressions suffered him not to continue for several moments.

“Certainly, Joe,” Mr. Allen then resumed. “I will not mention them again. I was only leading to the remark that nightingales serenading through the almond-groves of Sicily probably have nothing particular on our enterprising little city during a night in apple-blossom time. My great trouble, Joe, is never getting _used_ to its being springtime. Every year when it comes around again it hits me just the same way—maybe a little more so each year that I grow older. And this has been the first plumb genuine spring day we’ve had. At the present hour this first true blue spring day is hushing itself down into the first spring evening, and in a little while there’ll be another miracle: the first scented and silvered spring night. All over town the old folks are coming out from their suppers to sit on their front porches, and the children are beginning to play hi-spy in and out among the trees. Pretty soon they’ll all, old and young, be strolling up-town to hear the band play on the courthouse steps. I expect some of the young couples already _have_ started; they like to walk slowly and not say much, on the way to the spring concert, you know.”

Mr. Allen drank another glass of buttermilk, smiled, then murmured with repletion and the pathos of a concluding bit of enthusiasm. “Oh, Lordy, Lordy!” he said, “What it is to be twenty or twenty-five in springtime!”

“Not for me,” Mr. Perley rejoined, shaking his head.

“No, I suppose not. It does seem pretty rough,” said Lucius, sympathetically, “to think of you sitting here in this reeky hole, when pretty nearly every other young fellow in town will be strolling through the apple-blossom smell in the moonlight with a girl on his arm, and the band playing, and all. Old soak Beeslum’ll probably be in here to join you after while, though; and four or five farm hands, and some of the regular Saturday-night town drunks, and maybe two or three Swedes. Oh, I expect you’ll have _company_ enough, Joe!”

“I guess so. Anyhow, I haven’t much choice! This thing’s got me, and I’ve got to go through with it, Lucius.”

“I see. Yes, sir, it’s too bad! Too bad!” And Lucius looked sympathetically down, then cheerfully up again, as the swinging-doors parted to admit the entrance of the returned bartender. “Hello, George!”

“Back a’ready,” said George self-approvingly. “Ham, fried potatoes, coffee, and griddle-cakes, all tucked inside o’ me, too! Didn’t miss any customers, did I?”

“No.”

George came to the table. “Lemme look how many drinks you owe me fer sence I went out, Joe,” he said. “I had the place where she come to in the neck of the bottle marked with my thumb.” He lifted the bottle, regarded it thoughtfully at first, then with some surprise. He set it down upon the table without comment, began to whistle “Little Annie Rooney,” went behind the bar, doffed his hat, resumed his apron, and continued to whistle.

Mr. Allen rose, dusting some crumbs of cracker from his attire. “I guess I must have won the buttermilk record, George,” he said, as he placed a silver dollar upon the bar. “If buttermilk were intoxicating there wouldn’t be a sober creature on the face of the earth. Trouble with your other stuff, George, it _tastes_ so rotten!”

“I take buttermilk sometimes myself, Lu,” said George as he made change. “I guess there ain’t nobody seen me carryin’ much hard liquor sence my second child was born. That was the time they had to jug me, and—whoo, _gosh!_ you’d ought to seen what I went through when I got home that night! She’s little and she was sick-abed, too, but that didn’t git in _her_ way none! No, sir!”

“Good night,” said Lucius cheerily. “I’m going to stroll along Pawpaw Street before the band starts. Moon’ll be ’way up in a little while now, and on such a night as this is going to be did Jessica, the Jew’s daughter—— _You_ know what I mean, George.”

“Yep,” said George blankly. “I gotcha, Lu.”

“I’m going,” said Lucius, “to go and push in with some folks to listen to the band with. Good night, Joe.”

Joe Perley did not turn his head, but sat staring fixedly at the table, his attitude being much the same as that in which Lucius had discovered him.

“Good night, Joe,” the departing gentleman paused to repeat.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Lucius. “I only said ‘good night.’”

“All right,” said Joe absently. “Good night.”

Mr. Allen took a musical departure. “Oh, as I strolled out one summer evening,” he sang, “for to meet Miss Nellie Green, all the birds and the flow’rs was singing sweetly, wherev-urr they was to be seen!”

Thus, singing heartily, he passed between the swinging-doors and out to the street. Here he continued his euphonic mood, but moderated his expression of it to an inconspicuous humming. Dusk had fallen, a dusk as scented and as alive with spring as he had claimed it would be; and a fair shaft of the rising moon already struck upon the white cupola of the courthouse.

* * * * *

. . . Mary Ricketts was leaning upon the front gate of the Ricketts place when he came there.

“Good evening, Miss Mary,” he said. “Are the Judge and your mother at home?”

“They’re right there on the front porch, Mr. Allen,” she said cordially. “Won’t you come in?”

“In a minute,” he responded. “It does me good to hear you answer when I ask for your parents, Miss Mary.”

“How is that?”

“Why,” he said, “you always sound so friendly when I ask for _them_!”

She laughed, and explained her laughter by saying, “It’s funny you don’t always ask for them!”

“Just so,” he agreed. “I’ve been thinking about that. Are you all going up to the Square pretty soon, to hear the concert?”

“Father and mother are, I think,” she said. “I’m not.”

“Just ‘waiting at the gate’?”

“Not _for_ any one!”

Lucius took off his hat and fanned himself, a conciliatory gesture. “I tell you I feel mighty sorry for one young man in this town to-night,” he said.

“Who’s that, Mr. Allen?”

“Well——” he hesitated. “I don’t know if I ought to tell _you_ about it.”

“Why not me?” she asked, not curiously.

“Well—it’s that young Joe Perley.”

Miss Ricketts was mildly amused; Lucius’s tone was serious, and if she had any interest whatever in Mr. Perley it was of a quality most casual and remote. “Why should you either tell me or not tell me anything about him?” she asked.

“You know he’s such a good-looking young fellow,” said Lucius. “And he’s going to make a fine lawyer, too; I’ve had him with me in a couple of cases, and I’ve an idea he might have something like a real career, if——” He paused.

“Yes?” she said idly. “If what? And why is it you feel so sorry for him, and why did you hesitate to tell _me_? What’s it all about, Mr. Allen?”

“I suppose I’d better explain, now I’ve gone this far,” he said, a little embarrassed. “I was talking with Joe to-day, and—well, the fact is we got to talking about you.”

“You did?” Her tone betokened an indifference unmistakably genuine. “Well?”

Lucius laughed with increased embarrassment. “Well—the fact is we talked about you a long while.”

“Indeed?” she said coldly, but there was a slight interest now perceptible under the coldness; for Miss Mary Ricketts was not unhuman. “Was there a verdict?”

“It—it wasn’t so much what he said, exactly—no, not so much that,” Lucius circumlocuted. “It was more the—the length of time we were talking about you. That was the thing that struck _me_ about it, because I didn’t know—that is, I’d never heard—I——”

“What _are_ you trying to say, Mr. Allen?”

“Well, I mean,” said Lucius, “I mean I hadn’t known that he came around here at all.”

“He doesn’t.”

“That’s why I was so surprised.”

“Surprised at what?” she said impatiently.

“Why,” said Lucius, “surprised at the length of time that we were talking about you!”

“What nonsense!” she cried. “_What_ nonsense! I don’t suppose he’s said two words to me or I to him in two years!”

“Yes,” Lucius assented. “That’s what makes it all the more remarkable! I supposed the only girl he ever thought _anything_ about was Molly Baker, but he told me the only reason he ever goes there is just because she lives next door to him.”

“Not very polite to Molly!” said Miss Ricketts, and she laughed with some indulgence for this ungallantry.

“Still, Molly’s a determined girl,” Lucius suggested; “and she might——”

“She might what?”

“Nothing,” said Lucius. “I was only remembering I’d always heard she was such a—such a _grasping_ sort of girl.”

“Had you?”

“Yes, hadn’t you?”

She was thoughtful for a moment. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“So it seemed to me—well——” He laughed hesitatingly. “Well, it certainly was curious, the length of time we were talking about you to-day!” And he paused again as if awaiting her comment; but she offered none. “Well,” he said, finally, “I expect I better go join the old folks on the porch where I belong.”

He was heartily received and made welcome in that sedate retreat, where, as he said, he belonged; but throughout the greetings and the subsequent conversation he kept a corner of his eye upon the dim white figure in the shadow of the maple trees down by the gate.

Presently another figure, a dark one, graceful and young, came slowly along the sidewalk—slowly, and rather hesitatingly. This figure paused, took a few steps onward again; then definitely halted near the gate.

“Who is that young man out there, talking to Mary?” asked Mary’s mother. “Can you make out, father?”

“It’s that young Joe Perley.”

“I’ve heard he drinks a good deal sometimes,” said Mrs. Ricketts thoughtfully. “His mother says he tries not to, but that it comes over him, and that he’s afraid he’ll turn out like his father.”

Mr. Allen laughed cheerfully. “Anybody at Joe’s age can turn out any way he wants to,” he said. “Mrs. Perley needn’t worry about Joe any more. I just sat with him an hour down at the National House, and there was an open whisky bottle on the table before us, and he never once touched it all the time I was talking with him.”

“Well, I’m glad of that,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “That ought to show he has plenty of will-power, anyhow.”

“Plenty,” said Lucius.

Then Mary’s young voice called from the spaces of night. “I’m going to walk up-town to the concert with Mr. Perley, mother. You’d better wear your shawl if _you_ come.”

And there was the click of the gate as she passed out.

“We might as well be going along then, I suppose,” said Mrs. Ricketts, rising. “You’ll come with us old folks, Lucius?”

* * * * *

As the three old folks sauntered along the moon-speckled sidewalk the two slim young figures in advance were faintly revealed to them, likewise sauntering. And Lucius was right: you could smell apple-blossoms from one end of the town to the other.

“I hope our boys will win the band tournament at the county fair next summer,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Don’t you think there’s a pretty good chance of it, Lucius?”

For a moment he appeared not to have heard her, and she gently repeated her question:

“Don’t you think there’s a pretty good chance of it?”

“Yes, more than a chance,” he dreamily replied. “It only takes a hint in springtime. They’ll do practically anything you tell ’em to. It’s mostly the apple-blossoms and the little birds.”

WILLAMILLA

MASTER LAURENCE COY, aged nine, came down the shady sidewalk one summer afternoon, in a magnificence that escaped observation. To the careless eye he was only a little boy pretending to be a drummer; for although he had no drum and his clenched fingers held nothing, it was plain that he drummed. But to be merely a drummer was far below the scope of his intentions; he chose to employ his imagination on the grand scale, and to his own way of thinking, he was a full drum-corps, marching between lines of tumultuous spectators. And as he came gloriously down the shouting lane of citizenry he pranced now and then; whereupon, without interrupting his drumming, he said sharply: “Whoa there, Jenny! Git up there, Gray!” This drum-corps was mounted.

He vocalized the bass drums and the snare drums in a staccato chant, using his deepest voice for the bass, and tones pitched higher, and in truth somewhat painfully nasal, for the snare; meanwhile he swung his right arm ponderously on the booms, then resumed the rapid employment of both imaginary sticks for the rattle of the tenor drums. Thus he projected and sketched, all at the same time, every detail of this great affair.

“_Boom!_” he said. “_Boom! Boomety, boomety, boom!_” Then he added:

“Boom! Boom!
Boom bought a rat trap,
Bigger than a bat trap,
Bigger than a _cat_ trap!
Boom! Boom!
Boomety, boomety, boom!”

So splendid was the effect upon himself of all this pomp and realism, that the sidewalk no longer contented him. Vociferating for the moment as a bugle, the drum-corps swung to the right and debouched to the middle of the street, where such a martial body was more in place, and thenceforth marched, resounding. “_Boom! Boom! Boomety, boomety, boom!_” There followed repetitions of the chant concerning the celebrated trap purchased by Mr. Boom.

A little girl leaned upon a gate that gave admission to a pleasant yard, shaded by a vast old walnut tree, and from this point she watched the approach of the procession. She was a homely little girl, as people say; but a student of small affairs would have guessed that she had been neatly dressed earlier in the day; and even now it could be seen that the submergence of her right stocking into its own folds was not due to any lack of proper equipment, for equipment was visible. She stood behind the gate, eagerly looking forth, and by a coincidence not unusual in that neighbourhood, a beautiful little girl was at the gate of the next yard, some eighty or a hundred feet beyond; but this second little girl’s unspotted attire had suffered no disarrangements, and her face was clean; even her hands were miraculously clean.

When the sonorous Laurence came nearer, the homely little girl almost disappeared behind her gate; her arms rested upon the top of it, and only her hair, forehead and eyes could be seen above her arms. The eyes, however, had become exceedingly sharp, and they shone with an elfin mirth that grew even brighter as the drum-corps drew closer.

“_Boom!_” said Laurence. “_Boomety, boomety, boom!_” And again he gave an account of Mr. Boom’s purchase; but he condescended to offer no sign betokening a consciousness of the two spectators at their gates. He went by the first of these in high military order, executing a manœuvre as he went—again briefly becoming a trumpeter, swinging to the right, then to the left, and so forward once more, as he resumed the drums. “_Boom! Boom! Boomety, boomety, boom!_

“Boom! Boom!
Boom bought a rat trap,
Bigger than a bat trap——”

But here he was profoundly annoyed by the conduct of the homely little girl. She darted out of her gate, ran to the middle of the street and pranced behind him in outrageous mockery. In a thin and straining voice, altogether inappropriate for the representation of a drum-corps, she piped:

“Boom bought a rat trap,
Bigger than a bat trap,
Bigger than a _cat_ trap!
Boom!”

Laurence turned upon her. “For heavenses’ sakes!” he said. “My good-_nuss_, Daisy Mears, haven’t you got _any_ sense? For heavenses’ sakes, pull up your ole stockin’s!”

“I won’t,” Miss Mears returned with instant resentment. “I guess you can’t order _me_ around, Mister Laurence Coy! I doe’ know who ever ’pointed you to be _my_ boss! Besides, only one of ’em’s fell down.”

“Well, pull _it_ up, then,” he said crossly. “Or else don’t come hangin’ around me!”

“Oh, you don’t say so!” she retorted. “Thank you ever so kinely an’ p’litely for your complimunts just the same, but I pull up my stockin’s whenever _I_ want to, not when every person I happen to meet in the street goes an’ takes an’ tells me to!”

“Well, you better!” said Laurence, at a venture, for he was not absolutely certain of her meaning. “Anyway, you needn’t hang around _me_ unless——”

He stopped, for Daisy Mears had begun, not to hang around him indeed, but to dance around him, and indecorously at that! She levelled her small, grimy right forefinger at him, appearing to whet it with her left forefinger, which was equally begrimed, and at the same time she capered, squealing triumphantly: “Ya-ay, Laurunce! Showin’ off! Showin’ off ’cause Elsie Threamer’s lookin’ at you! Showin’ off for Elsie! Showin’ off for Elsie!”

“I am not!” Laurence made loud denial, but he coloured and glanced wretchedly at the other little girl, who had remained at her own gate. Her lovely, shadowy eyes appeared to be unaware of the dispute in the street; and, crooning almost soundlessly to herself, she had that perfect detachment from environment and events so often observed in Beauties.

“I am _not_!” Laurence repeated. “If I was goin’ to show off before anybody, I wouldn’t show off before Elsie!” And on the spur of the moment, to prove what he said, he made a startling misrepresentation of his sentiments. “I hate her!” he shouted.

But his tormentress was accustomed to deal with wild allegations of this sort, and to discount them. “Ya-ay, Laur-runce!” she cried. “Showin’ off for Elsie! Yes, you were! Showin’ off for Elsie! Show-win’ off for Ell-_see_!” And circling round him in a witch dance, she repeated the taunt till it nauseated him, his denials became agonized and his assertions that he hated Elsie, uproarious. Thus within the space of five minutes a pompous drum-corps passed from a state of discipline to one of demoralization.

“Children! Children!” a woman’s voice called from an open window. “Get out of the street, children. Look out for the automobiles!”

Thereupon the witch dance stopped, and the taunting likewise; Daisy returned to the sidewalk with a thoughtful air; and Master Coy followed her, looking rather morbid, but saying nothing. They leaned against the hedge near where the indifferent and dreamy Elsie stood at her gate; and for some time none of the three spoke: they had one of those apparently inexplicable silences that come upon children. It was Laurence who broke it, with a muttering.

“Anyways, I wasn’t,” he said, seemingly to himself.

“You was, too,” Daisy said quietly.

“Well, how you goin’ to prove it?” Laurence inquired, speaking louder. “If it’s so, then you got to prove it. You either got to prove it or else you got to take it back.”

“I don’t either haf to!”

“You do too haf to!”

“All right, then,” said Daisy. “I’ll prove it by Elsie. He was, wasn’t he, Elsie?”

“What?” Elsie inquired vaguely.

“Wasn’t Laurence showin’ off out in the street? He _was_ showin’ off, wasn’t he?”

“I was not!”

“You was, too! Wasn’t he, Elsie?”

“I doe’ know,” Elsie said, paying no attention to them; for she was observing a little group that had made its appearance at the next corner, a few moments earlier, and now came slowly along the sidewalk in the mottled shade of the maple trees. “Oh, look!” she cried. “Just look at that _darling_ little coloured baby!”

Her companions turned to look where she pointed, and Daisy instantly became as ecstasized as Elsie. “Oh, _look_ at the precious, darling, little _thing_!” she shouted.

As for Laurence, what he saw roused little enthusiasm within his bosom; on the contrary, he immediately felt a slight but distinct antipathy; and he wondered as, upon occasion he had wondered before, why in the world little girls of his own age, and even younger girls, as well as older girls and grown-up women, so often fell into a gesticular and vocal commotion at the sight of a baby. However, he took some interest in the dog accompanying this one.

The baby sat in a small and rickety wooden wagon which appeared to be of home manufacture, since it was merely a brown box on small wheels or disks of solid wood. A long handle projected behind as a propelling device, but the course of the vehicle was continually a little devious, on account of a most visible eccentricity of the front wheels. The infant was comfortable among cushions, however, and over its head a little, ancient, fringed red parasol had been ingeniously erected, probably as much for style as for shade. Moreover, this note of fashion was again touched in the baby’s ribboned cap, and in the embroidered scarf that served as a coverlet, and, though plainly a relic, still exhibited a lively colour.

An unevenly ponderous old coloured woman pushed the wagon; but her complexion was incomparably darker than the occupant’s, which was an extremely light tan, so that no one would have guessed them to be as nearly related as they really were. And although this deeply coloured woman’s weight was such a burden to her that she advanced at a slow, varying gait, more a sag-and-shuffle than a walk, she was of an exuberantly gracious aspect. In fact, her expression was so benevolent that it was more than striking; it was surprising. Her eyes, rolling and curiously streaked, were visibly moist with kindness; her mouth was murmurous in loving phrases addressed sometimes to life generally, sometimes to the baby, and sometimes to the dog accompanying the cortège.

This dog was one of those dogs who feel themselves out of place in the street, and show that they do by the guardedness of their expressions. Their relief when they reach an alley is evident; then they relax at once; the look of strain vanishes from their eyes, and their nerves permit them once more to sit when they massage their ears. They seem intended to be white, but the intention appears to have become early enfeebled, leaving them the colour of a pale oyster;—and they do not wear collars, these dogs. A collar upon one of them would alter his status disturbingly, and he would understand that, and feel confused and troubled. In a word, even when these dogs are seen in an aristocratic environment, for some straying moment, they are dogs instantly recognizable as belonging to coloured persons.

This one was valued highly by his owners; at least that was implied by what the benevolent old woman said to him as they moved slowly along the sidewalk toward the three children at Elsie Threamer’s gate.

“Hossifer,” she said, addressing the dog, “Hossifer, I b’lieve my soul you the fines’ dog in a worl’! I feel the lovin’es’ to you I ever feel any dog. You wuff fo’, fi’ hunnud dolluhs, Hossifer. You wuff fousan’ dolluhs; yes, you is! You a lovin’ dog, Hossifer!” Then she spoke to the baby, but affection and happiness almost overcame her coherence. “Dah-li-dah-li-dah-li-deedums!” she said. “Oh, but you the lovin’, lovin’, lovin’ baby, honey! You is my swee’, swee’, li’l dee-dee-do! Oh, oh, oh, bless Lawd, ain’ it a fine day! Fine day fer my honey lovin’ baby! Fine day f’um lovin’ heaven! Oh, oh, oh, I’m a-happy! Swee’ lovin’ livin’, lem me sing! _Oh_, lem me _sing_!”

She sang, and so loudly that she astonished the children; whereupon, observing their open mouths and earnestly staring eyes, she halted near them and laughed.

“Why all you look at me so funny?” she inquired hilariously. “Li’l whi’ boy, what fer you open you’ mouf at me, honey?”

“I didn’t,” Laurence said.

“Yes’m, indeed you did, honey,” she gaily insisted. “You all free did. Open you’ moufs and look so funny at me—make me laugh an’ holler!” And with unconventional vivacity she whooped and cackled strangely.

Finding her thus so vociferously amiable, Daisy felt encouraged to approach the wagon; and bending down over it, she poked the mulatto baby repeatedly in an affectionate manner. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I do think this is the darlingest baby!”

“Ain’ it!” the coloured woman cried. “Ain’ it! Yes’m, you say what’s _so_! Ain’ it!”

“Does it belong to you?” Daisy inquired.

“Yes’m, indeed do! I’m baby’ grammaw. Baby my li’l lovin’ gran’chile.”

It was plain that all three children thought the statement remarkable; they repeatedly looked from the light tan grandchild to the dark brown grandmother and back again, while Daisy, in particular, had an air of doubt. “Are you _sure_?” she asked. “Are you _sure_ you’re its gran’ma?”

“Yes’m indeed!”

“Honest?”

“Yes’m indeed!”

“Well——” Daisy began, and was about to mention the grounds of her doubt; but tact prevailed with her, and she asked a question instead.

“What’s its name?”

“Name Willamilla.”

“What?”

“Name Willamilla.”

“Willamilla?” said Daisy. “I never heard it before, but it’s a right pretty name.”

“Yes’m indeed!” the coloured woman agreed enthusiastically. “Willamilla lovin’, happy, _gran’_ name!”

“What’s the dog’s name?” Laurence asked.

“Hossifer.”

Laurence frowned importantly. “Is he full-blooded?” he inquired.

“Is he who?”

“I guess he isn’t very full-blooded,” Laurence said. “Will he bite?”

“Hossifer?” she said. “Hossifer, he a mighty lovin’ dog! Bite? He ain’ bite nobody. Hossifer, he a lovin’-hearted dog.”

Elsie had come out of her gate, and she bent over the wagon with Daisy. “Oh, my!” she said wistfully. “I do wish we could have this baby to play with.”

“Couldn’t we?” Daisy asked of the baby’s grandmother. “Would you be willing to sell it to us?”

“No’m,” the coloured woman replied, though she manifested no surprise at the question. “No’m; my son-’law, he wouldn’ lem me sell no Willamilla.”

“Well, would you give it to us, then?”

“No’m. Can’ give Willamilla ’way.”

“Oh, my!” Daisy exclaimed. “I do wish we could have this baby to play with awhile, anyway.”

The woman appeared to consider this, and her processes of considering it interested the children. Her streaked eyes were unusually large and protuberant; she closed them, letting the cumbrous lids roll slowly down over them, and she swayed alarmingly as she did this, almost losing her balance, but she recovered herself, opened her eyes widely, and said:

“How long you want play with Willamilla, honey?”

“Oh!” Daisy cried. “Will you let us? Oh, all afternoon!”

“Listen me,” said Willamilla’s grandmother. “I got errand I love to go on. Wagon push ri’ heavy, too. I leave Willamilla with you lovin’ li’l whi’ chillun, an’ come back free o’clock.”

“Oh, lovely!” Daisy and Elsie both shouted.

“Free o’clock,” said the coloured woman.

“That’ll give us _lots_ o’ time,” said Elsie. “Maybe almost an hour!”

The woman took a parcel from the wagon; it was wrapped in an old newspaper, and its shape was the shape of a bottle, though not that of an infant’s milk-bottle. Also, the cork was not quite secure, and the dampened paper about the neck of this bottle gave forth a faint odour of sweet spirits of niter mingled with the spicy fragrance of a decoction from juniper, but naturally neither the odour nor the shape of the parcel meant anything to the children. It meant a great, great deal to Willamilla’s grandma, however; and her lovingness visibly increased as she took the parcel in her arms.

“I’m go’ take this nice loaf o’ bread to some po’ ole sick folks whut live up the alley ovuh yonnuh,” she said. “Hossifer he go’ stay with Willamilla an’ li’l wagon.” She moved away, but paused to speak to Hossifer, who followed her. “Hossifer, you the lovin’est dog in a wide worl’, but you go on back, honey!” She petted him, then waved him away. “Go on back, Hossifer!” And Hossifer returned to the wagon, while she crossed the street toward the mouth of an alley.

The children stared after her, being even more interested just then in her peculiar progress than they were in their extraordinary new plaything. When the coloured woman reached a point about half way across the street, she found a difficulty in getting forward; her feet bore her slowly sidewise for some paces; she seemed to wander and waver; then, with an effort at concentration, she appeared to see a new path before her, followed it, and passed from sight down the alley.

Behind her she left a strongly favourable impression. Never had Daisy and Elsie met an adult more sympathetic to their wishes or one more easily persuaded than this obliging woman, and they turned to the baby with a pleasure in which there was mingled a slight surprise. They began to shout endearing words at Willamilla immediately, however, and even Master Coy looked upon the infant with a somewhat friendly eye, for he was warmed toward it by a sense of temporary proprietorship, and also by a feeling of congeniality, due to a supposition of his in regard to Willamilla’s sex. But of course Laurence’s greater interest was in Hossifer, though the latter’s manner was not encouraging. Hossifer’s brow became furrowed with lines of suspicion; he withdrew to a distance of a dozen yards or so, and made a gesture indicating that he was about to sit down, but upon Laurence’s approaching him, he checked the impulse, and moved farther away, muttering internally.

“Good doggie!” Laurence said. “_I_ won’t hurt you. Hyuh, Hossifer! Hyuh, Hossifer!”

Hossifer’s mutterings became more audible, his brow more furrowed, and his eyes more undecided. Thus by every means he sought to make plain that he might adopt any course of action whatever, that he but awaited the decisive impulse, would act as it impelled, and declined responsibility for what he should happen to do on the spur of the moment. Laurence made a second effort to gain his confidence, but after failing conspicuously he thought best to return to Willamilla and the ladies.

“My goodness!” he said. “What on earth you doin’ to that baby?”

Chattering in the busiest and most important way, they had taken Willamilla from the wagon and had settled which one was to have the “first turn.” This fell to Daisy, and holding Willamilla in her arms rather laboriously—for Willamilla was fourteen months old and fat—she began to walk up and down, crooning something she no doubt believed to be a lullaby.

“It’s my turn,” Elsie said. “I’ve counted a hunderd.”

“No fair!” Daisy protested at once. “You counted too fast.” And she continued to pace the sidewalk with Willamilla while Elsie walked beside her, insisting upon a rightful claim.

“Here!” Laurence said, coming up to them. “Listen! You’re holdin’ him all sprawled out and everything—you better put him back in the wagon. I bet if you hold him that way much longer you’ll spoil somep’m in him.”

“_Him?_” Both of his fair friends shouted; and they stared at Laurence with widening eyes. “Well, I declare!” Elsie said pettishly. “Haven’t you even got sense enough to know it’s a girl, Laurence Coy?”

“It is not!”

“It is, too!” they both returned.

“Listen here!” said Laurence. “Look at his name! I guess that settles it, don’t it?”

“It settles it he’s a girl,” Daisy cried. “I bet you don’t even know what her name is.”

“Oh, I don’t?”

“Well, what is it, then?”

“Willie Miller.”

“What?”

“Willie Miller!” Laurence said. “That’s what his own gran’mother said his name was. She said his name’s Willie Miller.”

Upon this the others shouted in derision; and with the greatest vehemence they told him over and over that Willamilla’s name was Willamilla, that Willamilla was a girl’s name, that Willamilla was consequently a girl, that she was a girl anyhow, no matter what her name was, but that her name actually was Willamilla, as her own grandmother had informed them. Grandmothers, Daisy and Elsie explained pityingly, are supposed to know the names of their own grandchildren.

Laurence resisted all this information as well as he was able, setting forth his own convictions in the matter, and continuing his argument while they continued theirs, but finally, in desperation, he proposed a compromise.

“Go on an’ _call_ him Willamilla,” he said bitterly, “—if you got to! _I_ doe’ care if you haven’t got any more sense’n to call him Willamilla when his real name’s Willie Miller an’ his own gran’mother says so! _I_’m goin’ to call him Willie Miller till I die; only for heavenses’ sake, hush up!”

The ladies declined to do as he suggested; whereupon he withdrew from the dispute, and while they talked on, deriding as well as instructing him, he leaned upon the gate and looked gloomily at the ground. However, at intervals, he formed with his lips, though soundlessly, the stubborn words, “His name’s Willie Miller!”

“Oh, I tell you what’d be lovely!” Daisy cried. “Maybe she knows how to _walk_! Let’s put her down and see—and if she doesn’t know how already, why, we can teach her!”

Elsie gladly fell in with her friend’s idea, and together they endeavoured to place Willamilla upon her feet on the ground. In this they were confronted with insuperable difficulties: Willamilla proved unable to comprehend their intentions; and although Daisy knelt and repeatedly placed the small feet in position, the experiment was wholly unsuccessful. Nevertheless the experimenters, not at all discouraged, continued it with delight, for they _played_ that Willamilla was walking. They heaped praises upon her.

“My darling baby!” Daisy cried. “Doesn’t she walk _beautiful_?”

“The precious little love!” Elsie echoed. “She just walks _beautiful_!”

At this the gloomy person in the background permitted himself to sneer. “That ain’t walkin’,” he said.

“It is, too! You doe’ know what you’re talkin’ about!” the chorus of two retorted, not interrupting their procedure.

“He ain’t walkin’,” Laurence maintained.

“She is, too!” said Elsie.

“She’s walkin’ now,” said Daisy. “She’s walkin’ all the time.”

“No, he’s not,” Laurence said. “His feet are sort of curly, and they’re _’way_ too wide apart. I bet there’s somep’m the matter with him.”

“There is not!” The two little girls looked round at him indignantly; for this unwarranted intimation of some structural imperfection roused them. “Shame on you!” Daisy said; and to Willamilla: “Show mamma how beautiful she walks.”

“He can’t do it,” Laurence said obdurately. “I bet there _is_ somep’m the matter with him.”

“There is _not_!”

“Yes, sir,” said Laurence, and he added, with conviction: “His legs ain’t fixed on him right.”

“Shame on you, Laurence Coy!”

But Laurence persisted in his view.

“Listen!” he said, arguing. “Look at _my_ legs. Look at anybody’s legs that can walk. Well, are they fixed on ’em the way _his_ are?”

“Yes, they are!” Daisy returned sharply. “Only hers are fixed on better than yours!”

“They ain’t,” said Laurence. “Mine are fixed on like other people’s, and his are—well, they’re terrable!”

“Oh, isn’t he tiresome?” Elsie said pettishly. “Do be quiet about your ole legs!”

“Yes, _do_!” said Daisy; and then she jumped up, a new idea lighting her eyes. “_I_ tell you what let’s do,” she cried. “Let’s put her back in the wagon, an’ play we’re takin’ a walk on Sunday with our baby an’ all the family.”

“How’ll we play it?” Elsie asked.

“Well, _I_’ll be the mamma and push the wagon,” Daisy said excitedly. “Elsie, you be some lady that’s visitin’ us, an’ sort of walk along with us, an’——”

“No,” Elsie interrupted. “_I_ want to be the mamma and push the wagon, an’ _you_ be some lady that’s visitin’ _us_.”

Daisy looked a little annoyed, but she compromised. “Well, we’ll go a long walk, and I’ll be the mamma the first block, an’ then the next block you can be the mamma, and I’ll be the lady that’s visitin’ us, an’ then the next block it’ll be my turn again.”

“All right,” said Elsie. “What’ll we have Laurence be?”

“We’ll have him be the father.”

Laurence frowned; the idea was rather distasteful to him, and for some reason a little embarrassing. “Listen!” he said. “What do I haf to do?”

“Oh, just walk along and kind of talk an’ everything.”

“Well——” he said uncertainly; then he brightened a little. “I’ll be smokin’ cigars,” he said.

“All right, you can.” And having placed Willamilla in the wagon, Daisy grasped the handle, pushing the vehicle before her. Laurence put a twig in his mouth, puffing elaborately; Elsie walked beside Willamilla; and so the procession moved—Hossifer, still in a mood of indecision, following at a varying distance. And Daisy sang her lullaby as they went.

This singing of hers had an unfavourable effect upon Laurence. For a few minutes after they started he smoked his twig with a little satisfaction and had a slight enjoyment in the thought that he was the head of a family—but something within him kept objecting to the game; he found that really he did not like it. He bore it better on the second and fourth blocks, for Elsie was the mother then, but he felt a strong repulsion when Daisy assumed that relation. He intensely disliked being the father when she was the mother, and he was reluctant to have anybody see him serving in that capacity. Daisy’s motherhood was aggressive; she sang louder and louder, and even without the singing the procession attracted a great deal of attention from pedestrians. Laurence felt that Daisy’s music was in bad taste, especially as she had not yet pulled up her stocking.

She made up the tune, as well as the words, of her lullaby; the tune held beauty for no known ears except her own and these were the words:

“Oh, my da-ar-luh-un baby,
My-y lit-tull baby!
Go to sleep! Go to _slee_-heep!
Oh, my dear lit-_tull_ baby!
My baby, my dar-luh-un bay-bee,
My bay-bee, my bay-_hay_-bee!”

As she thus soothed the infant, who naturally slumbered not, with Daisy’s shrill voice so near, some people on the opposite side of the street looked across and laughed; and this caused a blush of mortification to spread over the face of the father.

“Listen!” he remonstrated. “You don’t haf to make all that noise.”

She paid no attention but went on singing.

“Listen!” said Laurence nervously. “Anyways, you don’t haf to open your mouth so wide when you sing, do you? It looks terrable!”

She opened it even wider and sang still louder:

“My lit-tull baby, my da-ar-_luh_-un _bay_-bee!
My _bay_-bee! My bay-_hay_-bee!”

“Oh, my!” Laurence said, and he retired to the rear; whereupon Hossifer gave him a look and fell back a little farther. “Listen!” Laurence called to Daisy. “You scared the dog!”

Daisy stopped singing and glanced back over her shoulder. “I did not!” she said. “You scared her yourself.”

“_Who?_” Laurence advanced to the side of the wagon, staring incredulously. “Who you talkin’ about?”

“She was walkin’ along nice only a little way behind us,” Daisy said, “until you went near her.”

“I went near _who_?” Laurence asked, looking very much disturbed. “_Who_ was walkin’ along nice?”

“Hossifer was. You said _I_ scared her, and all the time she——”

“Listen!” said Laurence, breathing rapidly. “I won’t stand it. This dog isn’t a girl!”

“Hossifer’s a girl’s name,” said Daisy placidly. “I bet you never heard of a boy by that name in your life!”

“Well, what if I never?”

“Well,” said Daisy authoritatively, “that proves it. Hossifer’s a girl’s name and you just the same as said so yourself. Elsie, didn’t he say Hossifer isn’t a boy’s name, an’ doesn’t that prove Hossifer’s a girl?”

“Yes, it does,” Elsie returned with decision.

Laurence looked at them; then he shook his head. “Oh, _my_!” he said morosely, for these two appeared set upon allowing him no colleagues or associates whatever, and he felt himself at the end of his resources.

Daisy began to sing again at once.

“Oh, my dar-lun lit-_tull_ bay-hay-_bee_-hee!” she sang; and she may have been too vehement for Willamilla, who had thus far remained remarkably placid under her new circumstances; Willamilla began to cry.

She began in a mild way, with a whimper, inaudible on account of the lullaby; then she slightly increased her protest, making use of a voice like the tinnier tones of a light saxophone; and having employed this mild mechanism for some time, without securing any relief from the shrillness that bothered her, she came to the conclusion that she was miserable. Now, she was of this disposition: once she arrived at such a conclusion, she remained at it, and nothing could convey to her mind that altered conditions had removed what annoyed her, until she became so exhausted by the protraction of her own protests that she slept, forgot and woke to a new life.

She marked the moment of her decision, this afternoon, by the utterance of a wail that rose high over the singing; she lifted up her voice and used the full power of lungs and throat to produce such a sound that even the heart of the father was disquieted, while the mamma and the visiting lady at once flung themselves on their knees beside the wagon.

“Whassa _matta_? Whassa _matta_?” Daisy and Elsie inquired some dozens of times, and they called Willamilla a “peshus baby” even oftener, but were unable to quiet her. Indeed, as they shouted their soothing endearments, her tears reached a point almost torrential, and she beat the coverlet with her small fat hands.

“He’s mad about somep’m, I guess,” the father observed, looking down upon her. “Or else he’s got a spasm, maybe.”

“She hasn’t either,” Daisy said. “She’ll stop in a minute.”

“Well, it might not be spasms,” Laurence said. “But I bet whatever it is, it happened from all that singin’.”

Daisy was not pleased with his remark. “I’ll thank you not to be so kinely complimentary, Mister Laurence Coy!” she said, and she took up Willamilla in her arms, and rather staggeringly began to walk to and fro with her, singing:

“Oh, my peshus litt-_tull_ bay-_hay_-bee-hee!”

Elsie walked beside her, singing too, while Willamilla beat upon the air with desperate hands and feet, closed her effervescent eyes as tightly as she could, opened her mouth till the orifice appeared as the most part of her visage, and allowed the long-sustained and far-reaching ululations therefrom to issue. Laurence began to find his position intolerable.

“For heavenses’ sakes!” he said. “If this keeps up much longer, _I_’m goin’ _home_. Everybody’s a-lookin’ at us all up an’ down the street! Whyn’t you quit singin’ an’ give him a chance to get over whatever’s the matter with him?”

“Well, why don’t you do somep’m to help stop her from cryin’, yourself?” Elsie asked crossly.

“Well, I will,” he promised, much too rashly. “I’d stop him in a minute if I had my way.”

“All right,” Daisy said unexpectedly, halting with Willamilla just in front of him. “Go on an’ stop her, you know so much!”