Chapter VIII: Part 8

“Yes’m. I ain’ tellin’,” Genesis chuckled. “I’m a go’n a git me one nem waituh suits befo’ long, myse’f, so’s I kin quit wearin’ ’at ole Henry Gimlet suit what b’longs to Fanny, an’ have me a privut suit o’ my own. They’s a secon’ han’ sto’, ovuh on the avynoo, where they got swaller-tail suits all way f’um sevum dolluhs to nineteen dolluhs an’ ninety-eight cents. I’m a--”

Jane started, interrupting him. “_Sh_,” she whispered, laying a finger warningly upon her lips. William had entered the yard at the back gate, and, approaching over the lawn, had arrived at the steps of the porch before Jane perceived him. She gave him an apprehensive look, but he passed into the house absent-mindedly, not even glancing at Clematis, the humble and faithful dog in attendance upon Genesis--and that was remarkable, because the sight of Clematis was nearly always but too obviously painful to William. Clematis was so mingled a dog that he shook one’s faith in any definiteness of design on the part of Nature: it hurt William to see him about the premises, and William showed his feelings, for he feared that people might think Clematis belonged to him or to his family. But to-day he passed without flinching--and Mrs. Baxter was right: William did look pale.

“I guess he didn’t hear us,” said Jane, when he had disappeared into the interior. “He acks awful funny!” she added thoughtfully. “First when he was in love with Miss Pratt, he’d be mad about somep’m’ almost every minute he was home. Couldn’t anybody say _any_thing to him but he’d just behave as if it was awful, an’ then if you’d see him out walkin’ with Miss Pratt, well, he’d look like--like--” Jane paused; her eye fell upon Clematis and by a happy inspiration she was able to complete her simile with remarkable accuracy. “He’d look like the way Clematis looks at people! That’s just _exackly_ the way he’d look, Genesis, when he was walkin’ with Miss Pratt; an’ then when he was home he got so quiet he couldn’t answer questions an’ wouldn’t hear what anybody said to him at table or anywhere, an’ papa’d just almost bust. Mamma ’n’ papa’d talk an’ talk about it, an’”--she lowered her voice--“an’ I an’ sometimes he’d sit in there without any light, or he’d hardly ever get mad any more; he’d just sit in his room, an’ sometimes he’d sit in there without any light, or he’d sit out in the yard all by himself all evening maybe, an’ th’ other evening after I was in bed I heard ’em, an’ papa said--well, this is what papa told mamma.” And again lowering her voice, she proffered the quotation from her father in a tone somewhat awestruck. “Papa said, by Gosh! if he ever ’a’ thought a son of his could make such a Word idiot of himself he almost wished we’d both been girls!”

* * * * *

Having completed this report in a violent whisper Jane nodded repeatedly, for emphasis, and Genesis shook his head to show that he was as deeply impressed as she wished him to be. “I guess,” she added, after a pause, “I guess Willie didn’t hear anything we talked about him, or clo’es, or anything.”

She was mistaken in part. William had caught no reference to himself, but he had overheard something, and he was now alone in his room, thinking about it almost feverishly. “A secon’ han’ sto’, ovuh on the avynoo, where they got swaller-tail suits all way frum sevem dolluhs to nineteen dolluhs an’ ninety-eight cents.”

... Civilization is responsible for certain longings in the breast of man--artificial longings, but sometimes as poignant as hunger and thirst. Of these the strongest are those of the maid for the bridal veil, of the lad for long trousers, and of the youth for a tailed coat of state. To the gratification of this last, few of the more hushed joys in life are comparable. Indulged youths, too rich, can know, to the unctuous full, neither the longing nor the gratification; but one such as William, in “moderate circumstances,” is privileged to pant for his first evening clothes as the hart panteth after the water-brook--and sometimes, to pant in vain. Also, this was a crisis in William’s life: in addition to his yearning for such apparel, he was racked by a passionate urgency.

As Jane had so precociously understood, unless he should somehow manage to obtain the proper draperies he could not go to the farewell dance for Miss Pratt. Other unequipped boys could go in their ordinary “best clothes,” but William could not; for, alack! he had dressed too well too soon!

He was in desperate case. The sorrow of the approaching great departure was but the heavier because it had been so long deferred. To William it had seemed that this flower-strewn summer could actually end no more than he could actually die, but Time had begun its awful lecture, and even Seventeen was listening. Miss Pratt, that magic girl, was going home.

* * * * *

To the competent twenties, hundreds of miles suggesting no impossibilities, such departures may be rending but not tragic. Implacable, the difference to Seventeen! Miss Pratt was going home, and Seventeen could not follow; it could only mourn upon the lonely shore, tracing little angelic footprints left in the sand. To Seventeen such a departure is final; it is a vanishing.

And now it seemed possible that William might be deprived even of the last romantic consolations: of the “last waltz together,” of the last, last “listening to music in the moonlight together”; of all those sacred lasts of the “last evening together.” And this was a thought that turned him cold on the hot day: it was unbearable.

He had pleaded strongly for a “dress-suit” as a fitting recognition of his seventeenth birthday anniversary, but he had been denied by his father with a jocularity more crushing than rigor. Since then--in particular since the arrival of Miss Pratt--Mr. Baxter’s temper had been growing steadily more and more even. That is, as affected by William’s social activities, it was uniformly bad. Nevertheless, after heavy brooding, William decided to make one final appeal before he resorted to measures which the necessities of despair had brought to his mind.

He wished to give himself every chance for a good effect; therefore he did not act hastily, but went over what he intended to say, rehearsing it with a few appropriate gestures, and even taking some pleasure in the pathetic dignity of this performance, as revealed by occasional glances at the mirror of his dressing-table. But in spite of these little alleviations, his trouble was great and all too real, for, unhappily, the previous rehearsal of an emotional scene does not prove the emotion insincere.

Descending, he found his father and mother still sitting upon the front porch. Then, standing before them, solemn-eyed, he uttered a preluding cough, and began:

“Father,” he said, in a loud voice, “I have come to--”

“Dear me!” Mrs. Baxter exclaimed, not perceiving that she was interrupting an intended oration. “Willie, you _do_ look pale! Sit down, poor child; you oughtn’t to walk so much in this heat.”

“Father,” William repeated. “Fath--”

“I suppose you got her safely home from church,” Mr. Baxter said. “She might have been carried off by highwaymen if you three boys hadn’t been along to take care of her!”

But William persisted heroically. “Father--” he said. “Father, I have come to--”

“What on earth’s the matter with you?” Mr. Baxter ceased to fan himself, Mrs. Baxter stopped rocking, and both stared, for it had dawned upon them that something unusual was beginning to take place.

William backed to the start and tried it again. “Father, I have come to--” He paused and gulped, evidently expecting to be interrupted, but both of his parents remained silent, regarding him with puzzled surprise. “Father,” he began once more, “I have come--I have come to--to place before you something I think it’s your duty as my father to undertake, and I have thought over this step before laying it before you.”

“My soul!” said Mr. Baxter under his breath. “My soul!”

“At my age,” William continued, swallowing, and fixing his earnest eyes upon the roof of the porch to avoid the disconcerting stare of his father, “at my age there’s some things that ought to be done and some things that ought not to be done. If you asked me what I thought _ought_ to be done, there is only one answer: When anybody as old as I am has to go out among other young men his own age that already got one, like anyway half of them _have_, who I go with, and their fathers have already taken such a step, because they felt it was the only right thing to do, because at my age and the young men I go with’s age it _is_ the only right thing to do because that is something nobody could deny, at my age--” Here William drew a long breath, and, deciding to abandon that sentence as irrevocably tangled, began another: “I have thought over this step, because there comes a time to every young man when they must lay a step before their father before something happens that they would be sorry for. I have thought this undertaking over, and I am certain it would be your honest duty--”

“My soul!” gasped Mr. Baxter. “I thought I knew you pretty well, but you talk like a stranger to me! What _is_ all this? What you _want_?”

“A dress-suit!” said William. He had intended to say a great deal more before coming to the point, but though through nervousness he had lost some threads of his rehearsed plea, it seemed to him he was getting along well, and putting his case with some distinction and power. He was surprised and hurt, therefore, to hear his father utter a wordless shout in a tone of wondering derision.

“I have more to say--” William began.

But, disregarding this, Mr. Baxter cut him off. “A dress-suit!” he cried. “Well, I’m glad you were talking about _something_, because I honestly thought it must be too much sun!”

At this, the troubled William brought his eyes down from the porch roof and forgot his rehearsal. He lifted his hand appealingly. “Father,” he said, “I _got_ to have one!”

“Got to!” Mr. Baxter laughed a laugh that chilled the supplicant through and through. “At your age I thought I was lucky if I had _any_ suit that was fit to be seen in. You’re too young, Willie. I don’t want you to get your mind on such stuff, and if I have my way, you won’t have a dress-suit for four years more, anyhow.”

“Father, I _got_ to have one. I got to have one right away!” The urgency in William’s voice was almost tearful. “I don’t ask you to have it made, or to go to expensive tailors, but there’s a plenty of good ready-made ones that only cost about forty dollars; they’re advertised in the paper. Father, wouldn’t you spent just forty dollars? I’ll pay it back when I’m in business. I’ll work--”

Mr. Baxter waved all this aside. “It’s not the money. It’s the principle that I’m standing for, and I don’t intend--”

“Father, _won’t_ you do it?”

“No, I will not!”

* * * * *

William saw that sentence had been passed and all appeals for a new trial denied. He choked, and rushed into the house without more ado.

“Poor boy!” his mother said.

“Poor boy nothing!” fumed Mr. Baxter. “He’s almost lost his mind over that Miss Pratt. Think of his coming out here and starting a regular debating society declamation before his mother and father! Why, I never heard anything like it in my life! I don’t like to hurt his feelings, and I’d give him anything I could afford that would do him any good, but all he wants it for now is to splurge around in at this party before that little yellow-haired girl! I guess he can wear the kind of clothes most of the other boys wear--the kind _I_ wore at parties--and never thought of wearing anything else. What’s the world getting to be like? Seventeen years old and throws a fit because he can’t have a dress-suit!”

Mrs. Baxter looked thoughtful. “But--but suppose he felt he couldn’t go to the dance unless he wore one, poor boy--”

“All the better,” said Mr. Baxter firmly. “Do him good to keep away and get his mind on something else.”

“Of course,” she suggested, with some timidity, “forty dollars isn’t a great deal of money, and a ready-made suit, just to begin with--”

Naturally Mr. Baxter perceived whither she was drifting. “Forty dollars isn’t a thousand,” he interrupted, “but what you want to throw it away for? One reason a boy of seventeen oughtn’t to have evening clothes is the way he behaves with _any_ clothes. Forty dollars! Why, only this summer he sat down on Jane’s open paint-box, twice in one week!”

“Well--Miss Pratt _is_ going away, and the dance will be her last night. I’m afraid it would really hurt him to miss it. I remember once, before we were engaged--that evening before papa took me abroad, and you--”

“It’s no use, mamma,” he said. “We were both over twenty--why, _I_ was six years older than Willie, even then. There’s no comparison at all. I’ll let him order a dress-suit on his twenty-first birthday and not a minute before. I don’t believe in it, and I intend to see that he gets all this stuff out of his system. He’s got to learn some hard sense!”

Mrs. Baxter shook her head doubtfully, but she said no more. Perhaps she regretted a little that she had caused Mr. Baxter’s evening clothes to be so expansively enlarged--for she looked rather regretful. She also looked rather incomprehensible, not to say cryptic, during the long silence which followed, and Mr. Baxter resumed his rocking, unaware of the fixity of gaze which his wife maintained upon him--a thing the most loyal will do sometimes. The incomprehensible look disappeared before long, but the regretful one was renewed in the mother’s eyes whenever she caught glimpses of her son, that day, and at the table, where William’s manner was gentle--even toward his heartless father.

Underneath that gentleness, the harried self of William was no longer debating a desperate resolve, but had fixed upon it, and on the following afternoon Jane chanced to be a witness of some resultant actions. She came to her mother with an account of them.

“Mamma, what you s’pose Willie wants of those two ole market baskets that were down cellar?”

“Why, Jane?”

“Well, he carried ’em in his room, an’ then he saw me lookin’, an’ he said ‘G’way from here!’ an’ shut the door. He looks so funny! What’s he want of those ole baskets, mamma?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he doesn’t even know himself, Jane.”

But William did know, definitely. He had set the baskets upon chairs, and now, with pale determination, he was proceeding to fill them. When his task was completed the two baskets contained, between them:

One heavy-weight winter suit of clothes.

One light-weight summer suit of clothes.

Two pairs of white flannel trousers.

Two Madras negligée shirts.

Two flannel shirts.

Two silk shirts.

Seven soft collars.

Three silk neckties.

One crocheted tie.

Eight pairs of socks.

One pair of patent-leather shoes.

One overcoat.

Some underwear.

One two-foot shelf of books, consisting of several sterling works upon mathematics, in a damaged condition; five of Shakespeare’s plays, expurgated and edited for schools and colleges, and also damaged; a work upon political economy and another upon the science of physics; “Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,” “How to Enter a Drawing-Room and 500 Other Hints,” “Witty Sayings From Here and There,” “Lorna Doone,” “Quentin Durward,” “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” a very old copy of “Moths,” and a small Bible.

William spread handkerchiefs upon the two overbulging cargoes, that their nature might not be disclosed to the curious, and, after listening a moment at his door, took the baskets, one upon each arm, then went quickly down the stairs and out of the house, out of the yard, and into the alley--by which route he had modestly chosen to travel.

... After an absence of about two hours, he returned empty-handed and anxious. “Mother, I want to speak to you,” he said, addressing Mrs. Baxter in a voice which clearly proved the strain of these racking days. “I want to speak to you about something important.”

“Yes, Willie?”

“Please send Jane away. I can’t talk about important things with a child in the room.”

Jane naturally wished to stay, since he was going to say something important. “Mamma, do I _haf_ to go?”

“Just a few minutes, dear.”

Jane walked submissively out of the door, leaving it open behind her. Then, having gone about six feet farther, she halted, and, preserving a breathless silence, consoled herself for her banishment by listening to what was said, hearing it all as satisfactorily as if she had remained in the room. Quiet, thoughtful children, like Jane, avail themselves of these little pleasures oftener than is suspected.

“Mother,” said William, with great intensity, “I want to ask you please to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”

“What for, Willie?”

“Mother, I just ask you to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”

“But what _for_?”

“Mother, I don’t feel I can discuss it any; I simply ask you: Will you lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”

Mrs. Baxter laughed gently. “I don’t think I could, Willie, but certainly I should want to know what for.”

“Mother, I am going on eighteen years of age, and when I ask for a small sum of money, like three dollars and sixty cents, I think I might be trusted to know how to use it for my own good without having to answer questions like a ch--”

“Why, Willie!” she exclaimed. “You ought to have plenty of money of your own.”

“Of course I ought,” he agreed warmly. “If you’d ask father to give me a regular allow--”

“No, no; I mean you ought to have plenty left out of that old junk and furniture I let you sell, last month. You had nearly nine dollars!”

“That was five weeks ago,” William explained wearily.

“But you certainly must have some of it left. Why, it was _more_ than nine dollars, I believe! I think it was nearer ten. Surely you haven’t--”

“Ye Gods!” cried the goaded William. “A person going on eighteen years old ought to be able to spend nine dollars in five weeks without everybody’s acting like it was a crime! Mother, I ask you the simple question: Will you _please_ lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”

“I don’t think I ought to, dear. I’m sure your father wouldn’t wish me to, unless you’ll tell me what you want it for. In fact, I won’t consider it at all unless you do tell me.”

“You won’t do it?” he quavered.

She shook her head gently. “You see, dear, I’m afraid the reason you don’t tell me is because you know that I wouldn’t give it to you if I knew what you wanted it for.”

And this perfect diagnosis of the case so disheartened him that after a few monosyllabic efforts to continue the conversation with dignity, he gave it up, and left in such a preoccupation with despondency that he passed the surprised Jane, in the hall, without suspecting what she had been doing.

That evening, after dinner, he made to his father an impassioned appeal for three dollars and sixty cents, laying such stress of pathos on his principal argument that if he couldn’t have a dress-suit, at least he ought to be given three dollars and sixty _cents_ (the emphasis is William’s), that Mr. Baxter was moved in the direction of consent--but not far enough. “I’d like to let you have it, Willie,” he said, excusing himself for refusal, “but your mother felt _she_ oughtn’t to do it, unless you’d say what you wanted it for, and I’m sure she wouldn’t like me to do it. I can’t let you have it unless you get her to say she wants me to.”

Thus advised, the unfortunate made another appeal to his mother the next day, and having brought about no relaxation of the situation, again petitioned his father, on the following evening. So it went, the torn and driven William turning from parent to parent; and surely, since the world began, the special sum of three dollars and sixty cents has never been so often mentioned in any one house and in the same space of time as it was in the house of the Baxters during Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of that oppressive week. But on Friday William disappeared after breakfast and did not return to lunch.

Mrs. Baxter was troubled. During the afternoon she glanced often from the open window of the room where she had gone to sew, but the peaceful neighborhood continued to be peaceful, and no sound of the harassed footsteps of William echoed from the pavement. However, she saw Genesis arrive (in his week-day costume) to do some weeding, and Jane immediately skip forth for mingled purposes of observation and conversation.

“What _do_ they say?” thought Mrs. Baxter, observing that both Jane and Genesis were unusually animated. But for once that perplexity was to be dispersed. After an exciting half-hour Jane came flying to her mother, breathless.

“Mamma,” she cried, “I know where Willie is! Genesis told me, ’cause he saw him, an’ he talked to him while he was doin’ it.”

“Doing what? Where?”

“Mamma, listen! What you think Willie’s doin’? I bet you can’t g--”

“Jane!” Mrs. Baxter spoke sharply. “Tell me what Genesis said, at once.”

“Yes’m. Willie’s over in a lumber-yard that Genesis comes by on his way from over on the avynoo where all the colored people live--an’ he’s countin’ knot-holes in shingles.”

“He is _what_?”

“Yes’m. Genesis knows all about it, because he was thinkin’ of doin’ it himself, only he says it would be too slow. This is the way it is, mamma--listen, mamma, because this is just exactly the way it is. Well, this lumber-yard man got into some sort of a fuss because he bought millions an’ millions of shingles, mamma, that had too many knots in, an’ the man don’t want to pay for ’em, or else the store where he bought ’em won’t take ’em back, an’ they got to prove how many shingles are bad shingles, or somep’m, and anyway, mamma, that’s what Willie’s doin’. Every time he comes to a bad shingle, mamma, he puts it somewheres else, or somep’m like that, mamma, an’ every time he’s put a thousand bad shingles in this other place, they give him six cents. He gets the six cents to keep, mamma--an’ that’s what he’s been doin’ all day!”

“Good gracious!”

“Oh, but that’s nothing, mamma--just you wait till you hear the rest. _That_ part of it isn’t anything a _tall_, mamma! You wouldn’t hardly notice that part of it, if you knew the other part of it, mamma. Why, that isn’t _anything_!” Jane made demonstrations of scorn for the insignificant information already imparted.

“Jane!”

“Yes’m?”

“I want to know everything Genesis told you,” said her mother, “and I want you to tell it as quickly as you can.”

“Well, I _am_ tellin’ it, mamma!” Jane protested. “I’m just _beginning_ to tell it. I can’t tell it unless there’s a beginning, can I? How could there be _anything_ unless you had to begin it, mamma?”

“Try your best to go on, Jane!”

“Yes’m. Well, Genesis says--Mamma!” Jane interrupted herself with a little outcry. “Oh! I bet _that’s_ what he had those two market baskets for! Yes, sir! That’s just what he did! An’ then he needed the rest o’ the money and you an’ papa wouldn’t give him any, and so he began countin’ shingles to-day ’cause to-night’s the night of the party an’ he just _hass_ to have it!”

Mrs. Baxter, who had risen to her feet, recalled the episode of the baskets and sank into a chair. “How did Genesis know Willie wanted forty dollars, and if Willie’s pawned something how did Genesis know _that_? Did Willie tell Gen--”

“Oh, no, mamma, Willie didn’t want forty dollars--only fourteen!”

“But he couldn’t get even the cheapest ready-made dress-suit for fourteen dollars.”

“Mamma, you’re gettin’ it all mixed up!” Jane cried. “Listen, mamma! Genesis knows all about a second-hand store over on the avynoo; an’ it keeps ’most everything, an’ Genesis says it’s the nicest store! It keeps waiter suits all the way up to nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents. Well, an’ Genesis wants to get one of those suits, so he goes in there all the time an’ talks to the man an’ bargains an’ bargains with him, ’cause Genesis says this man is the bargainest man in the wide worl’, mamma! That’s what Genesis says. Well, an’ so this man’s name is One-eye Beljus, mamma. That’s his name, an’ Genesis says so. Well, an’ so this man that Genesis told me about that keeps the store--I mean One-eye Beljus, mamma--well, One-eye Beljus had Willie’s name written down in a book, an’ he knew Genesis worked for fam’lies that have boys like Willie in ’em, an’ this morning One-eye Beljus showed Genesis Willie’s name written down in his book, an’ One-eye Beljus asked Genesis if he knew anybody by that name an’ all about him. Well, an’ so at first Genesis pretended he was tryin’ to remember, because he wanted to find out what Willie went there for. Genesis didn’t tell any stories, mamma; he just pretended he couldn’t remember, an’ so, well, One-eye Beljus kept talkin’ an’ pretty soon Genesis found out all about it. One-eye Beljus said Willie came in there and tried on the coat of one of those waiter suits--”

“Oh, no!” gasped Mrs. Baxter.

“Yes’m, an’ One-eye Beljus said it was the only one that would fit Willie, an’ One-eye Beljus told Willie that suit was worth fourteen dollars, an’ Willie said he didn’t have any money, but he’d like to trade something else for it. Well, an’ so One-eye Beljus said this was an awful fine suit an’ the only one he had that had b’longed to a white gentleman. Well, an’ so they bargained, an’ bargained, an’ bargained, an’ _bargained_! An’ then, well, an’ so at last Willie said he’d go an’ get everything that b’longed to him, an’ One-eye Beljus could pick out enough to make fourteen dollars’ worth, an’ then Willie could have the suit. Well, an’ so Willie came home an’ put everything he had that b’longed to him into those two baskets, mamma--that’s just what he did, ’cause Genesis says he told One-eye Beljus it was everything that b’longed to him, an’ that would take two baskets, mamma. Well then, an’ so he told One-eye Beljus to pick out fourteen dollars’ worth, an’ One-eye Beljus ast Willie if he didn’t have a watch. Well, Willie took out his watch, an’ One-eye Beljus said it was an awful bad watch but he would put it in for a dollar; an’ he said, ‘I’ll put your necktie pin in for forty cents more,’ so Willie took it out of his necktie; an’ then One-eye Beljus said it would take all the things in the baskets to make I forget how much, mamma, and the watch would be a dollar more, an’ the pin forty cents, an’ that would leave just three dollars and sixty cents more for Willie to pay before he could get the suit.”

Mrs. Baxter’s face had become suffused with high color, but she wished to know all that Genesis had said, and, mastering her feelings with an effort, she told Jane to proceed--a command obeyed after Jane had taken several long breaths.

“Well, an’ so the worst part of it is, Genesis says, it’s because that suit is haunted.”

“What!”

“Yes’m,” said Jane solemnly; “Genesis says it’s haunted. Genesis says everybody over on the avynoo knows all about that suit, an’ he says that’s why One-eye Beljus never could sell it before. Genesis says One-eye Beljus tried to sell it to a colored man for three dollars, but the man said he wouldn’t put it on for three hunderd dollars, an’ Genesis says he wouldn’t either, because it belonged to a Dago waiter that--that--” Jane’s voice sank to a whisper of unctuous horror: she was having a wonderful time! “Mamma, this Dago waiter, he lived over on the avynoo, an’ he took a case-knife he’d sharpened--_an’ he cut a lady’s head off with it_!”

Mrs. Baxter screamed faintly.

“An’ he got hung, mamma! If you don’t believe it you can ask One-eye Beljus--I guess _he_ knows! An’ you can ask--”

“Hush!”

“An’ he sold this suit that Willie wants to One-eye Beljus when he was in jail, mamma. He sold it to him before he got hung, mamma.”

“Hush, Jane!”

But Jane couldn’t hush now. “An’ he had that suit on when he cut the lady’s head off, mamma, an’ that’s why it’s haunted. They cleaned it all up excep’ a few little spots of bl--”

“_Jane!_” shouted her mother. “You must not talk about such things, and Genesis mustn’t tell you stories of that sort!”

“Well, how could he help it, if he told me about Willie?” Jane urged reasonably.

“Never mind! Did that crazy ch-- Did Willie _leave_ the baskets in that dreadful place?”

“Yes’m--an’ his watch an’ pin,” Jane informed her impressively. “An’ One-eye Beljus wanted to know if Genesis knew Willie, because One-eye Beljus wanted to know if Genesis thought Willie could get the three dollars an’ sixty cents, an’ One-eye Beljus wanted to know if Genesis thought he could get anything more out of him besides that. He told Genesis he hadn’t told Willie he _could_ have the suit, after all; he just told him he _thought_ he could, but he wouldn’t say for certain till he brought him the three dollars an’ sixty cents. So Willie left all his things there, an’ his watch an’--”

“That will do!” Mrs. Baxter’s voice was sharper than it had ever been in Jane’s recollection. “I don’t need to hear any more--and I don’t _want_ to hear any more!”

Jane was justly aggrieved. “But mamma, it isn’t _my_ fault!”

Mrs. Baxter’s lips parted to speak, but she checked herself. “Fault?” she said gravely. “I wonder whose fault it really is!”

And with that she went hurriedly into William’s room, and made a brief inspection of his clothes-closet and dressing-table. Then, as Jane watched her in awed silence, she strode to the window and called loudly:

“Genesis!”

“Yes’m?” came the voice from below.

“Go to that lumber-yard where Mr. William is at work and bring him here to me at once. If he declines to come, tell him--” Her voice broke oddly; she choked, but Jane could not decide with what emotion. “Tell him--tell him I ordered you to use force if necessary! Hurry!”

“_Yes’m!_”

Jane ran to the window in time to see Genesis departing seriously through the back gate.

“Mamma--”

“Don’t talk to me now, Jane,” Mrs. Baxter said crisply. “I want you to go down in the yard, and when Willie comes tell him I’m waiting for him here in his own room. And don’t come with him, Jane. Run!”

“Yes, mamma.” Jane was pleased with this appointment: she anxiously desired to be the first to see how Willie “looked.”

... He looked flurried and flustered and breathless, and there were blisters upon the reddened palms of his hands. “What on earth’s the matter, mother?” he asked, as he stood panting before her. “Genesis said something was wrong, and he said you told him to hit me if I wouldn’t come.”

“Oh, _no_!” she cried. “I only meant I thought perhaps you wouldn’t obey any ordinary message--”

“Well, well, it doesn’t matter, but please hurry and say what you want to because I got to get back and--”

“No,” Mrs. Baxter said quietly. “You’re not going back to count any more shingles, Willie. How much have you earned?”

He swallowed, but spoke bravely. “Thirty-six cents. But I’ve been getting lots faster the last two hours and there’s a good deal of time before six o’clock. Mother--”

“No,” she said. “You’re going over to that horrible place where you’ve left your clothes and your watch and all those other things in the two baskets, and you’re going to bring them home at once.”

“Mother!” he cried aghast. “Who told you?”

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t want your father to find out, do you? Then get those things back here as quickly as you can. They’ll have to be fumigated after being in that den.”

“They’ve never been out of the baskets,” he protested hotly, “except just to be looked at. They’re _my_ things, mother, and I had a right to do what I needed to with ’em, didn’t I?” His utterance became difficult. “You and father just _can’t_ understand--and you won’t do anything to help me--”

“Willie, you can go to the party,” she said gently. “You didn’t need those frightful clothes at all.”

“I do!” he cried. “I _got_ to have ’em! I _can’t_ go in my day clo’es! There’s a reason you wouldn’t understand why I can’t. I just _can’t_!”

“Yes,” she said, “you can go to the party.”

“I can’t either! Not unless you give me three dollars and twenty-four cents, or unless I can get back to the lumber-yard and earn the rest before--”

“No!” And the warm color that had rushed over Mrs. Baxter during Jane’s sensational recital returned with a vengeance. Her eyes flashed. “If you’d rather I sent a policeman for those baskets, I’ll send one. I should prefer to do it--much! And to have that rascal arrested. If you don’t want me to send a policeman you can go for them yourself, but you must start within ten minutes, because if you don’t I’ll telephone headquarters. Ten minutes, Willie, and I mean it!”

He cried out, protesting. She would make him a thing of scorn forever and soil his honor, if she sent a policeman. Mr. Beljus was a fair and honest tradesman, he explained passionately, and had not made the approaches in this matter. Also, the garments in question, though not entirely new, nor of the highest mode, were of good material and in splendid condition. Unmistakably they were evening clothes, and such a bargain at fourteen dollars that William would guarantee to sell them for twenty after he had worn them this one evening. Mr. Beljus himself had said that he would not even think of letting them go at fourteen to anybody else, and as for the two poor baskets of worn and useless articles offered in exchange, and a bent scarfpin and a worn-out old silver watch that had belonged to great-uncle Ben--why, the ten dollars and forty cents allowed upon them was beyond all ordinary liberality; it was almost charity. There was only one place in town where evening clothes were rented, and the suspicious persons in charge had insisted that William obtain from his father a guarantee to insure the return of the garments in perfect condition. So that was hopeless. And wasn’t it better, also, to wear clothes which had known only one previous occupant (as was the case with Mr. Beljus’ offering) than to hire what chance hundreds had hired? Finally, there was only one thing to be considered and this was the fact that William _had_ to have those clothes!

“Six minutes,” said Mrs. Baxter, glancing implacably at her watch. “When it’s ten I’ll telephone.”

And the end of it was, of course, victory for the woman--victory both moral and physical. Three-quarters of an hour later she was unburdening the contents of the two baskets and putting the things back in place, illuminating these actions with an expression of strong distaste--in spite of broken assurances that Mr. Beljus had not more than touched any of the articles offered to him for valuation.

... At dinner, which was unusually early that evening, Mrs. Baxter did not often glance toward her son; she kept her eyes from that white face and spent most of her time in urging upon Mr. Baxter that he should be prompt in dressing for a card-club meeting which he and she were to attend that evening. These admonitions of hers were continued so pressingly that Mr. Baxter, after protesting that there was no use in being a whole hour too early, groaningly went to dress without even reading his paper.

William had retired to his own room, where he lay upon his bed in the darkness. He heard the evening noises of the house faintly through the closed door: voices and the clatter of metal and china from the faraway kitchen, Jane’s laugh in the hall, the opening and closing of the doors. Then his father seemed to be in distress about something: William heard him complaining to Mrs. Baxter; and though the words were indistinct, the tone was vigorously plaintive. Mrs. Baxter laughed and appeared to make light of his troubles, whatever they were--and presently their footsteps were audible from the stairway; the front door closed emphatically, and they were gone.

Everything was quiet now. The open window showed as a greenish oblong set in black, and William knew that in a little while--half an hour, perhaps--there would come through the stillness of that window the distant sound of violins. That was a moment he dreaded with a dread that ached. And as he lay on his dreary bed, he thought of brightly lighted rooms where other boys were dressing eagerly, faces and hair shining, hearts beating high--boys who would possess this last evening, and the “last waltz together,” the last smile and the last sigh.

It did not once enter his mind that he could go to the dance in his “best suit,” or that possibly the other young people at the party would be too busy with their own affairs to notice particularly what he wore. It was the unquestionable and granite fact, to his mind, that the whole derisive World would know the truth about his earlier appearances in his father’s clothes. And that was a form of ruin not to be faced. In the protective darkness and seclusion of William’s bedroom, it is possible that smarting eyes relieved themselves by blinking rather energetically; it is even possible that there was a minute damp spot upon the pillow. Seventeen cannot always manage the little boy yet alive under all the coverings.

There came a tapping upon the door and a soft voice.

“Will-ee?”

With a sharp exclamation William swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Of all things he desired not, he desired no conversation with, or on the part of, Jane. But he had forgotten to lock his door--the handle turned, and a dim little figure marched in.

“Willie, Adelia’s goin’ to put me to bed.”

“You g’way from here,” he said huskily. “I haven’t got time to talk to you. I’m busy.”

“Well, you can wait a minute, can’t you?” she asked reasonably. “I haf to tell you a joke on mamma.”

“I don’t want to hear any jokes!”

“Well, I _haf_ to tell you this one ’cause she told me to! Oh!” Jane clapped her hand over her mouth and jumped up and down, offering a fantastic silhouette against the light of the open door. “Oh, oh, _oh_!”

“What’s matter?”

“She said I mustn’t, _mustn’t_ tell that she told me to tell! My goodness! I forgot that! Mamma took me off alone right after dinner, an’ she told me to tell you this joke on her as soon as she an’ papa had left the house, but she said, ‘Above all _things_,’ she said, ‘_don’t_ let Willie know _I_ said to tell him.’ That’s just what she said, an’ here that’s the very first thing I had to go an’ do!”

“Well, what of it?”

Jane quieted down. The pangs of her remorse were lost in her love of sensationalism, and her voice sank to the thrilling whisper which it was one of her greatest pleasures to use. “Did you hear what a fuss papa was makin’ when he was dressin’ for the card-party?”

“I don’t care if--”

“He had to go in his reg’lar clo’es!” whispered Jane triumphantly. “An’ this is the joke on mamma: you know that tailor that let papa’s dress-suit way, way out; well, mamma thinks that tailor must think she’s crazy, or somep’m, ’cause she took papa’s dress-suit to him last Monday to get it pressed for this card-party, an’ she guesses he must of understood her to tell him to do lots besides just pressin’ it. Anyway, he went an’ altered it, an’ he took it way, way in again; an’ this afternoon when it came back it was even tighter’n what it was in the first place, an’ papa couldn’t _begin_ to get into it! Well, an’ so it’s all pressed an’ everything, an’ she stopped on the way out, an’ whispered to me that sh’d got so upset over the joke on her that she couldn’t remember where she put it when she took it out o’ papa’s room after he gave up tryin’ to get inside of it. An’ that,” cried Jane--“that’s the funniest thing of all! Why, it’s layin’ right on her bed this very minute!”

In one bound William leaped through the open door. Two seconds sufficed for his passage through the hall to his mother’s bedroom--and there, neatly spread upon the lace coverlet and brighter than coronation robes, fairer than Joseph’s sacred coat It lay!

_The People’s Home Journal_

THE BELL OF SAINT GREGOIRE

BY

AGNES ROSS WHITE

THE BELL OF SAINT GREGOIRE[9]

By AGNES ROSS WHITE

Not everywhere does the Virgin reach down to help those who pray to her as she does at St. Gregoire, but not everywhere do people pray with such simple faith, such surety, as do the _habitants_ in this little parish up among the Laurentides.

For there was the never-to-be-forgotten time, when Our Lady came to help Diâne Doré, the year the bell was hung in the old church, more than a hundred years ago.

Diâne was the child of her native hills, beautiful, wild and solemn; so beautiful that the country people, not understanding, called her look strange; wild with a quiet, pagan wildness, and solemn as a seer who beholds the heart of the world. When her parents died, every home in the parish was opened to her, for that is the way of the _habitants_, but everywhere she was an alien. Only gray-haired Père Dufresne recognized the miracle of her beauty and marveled at it, or listened to her words, even though he wondered at them and was puzzled; and only Père Dufresne loved the child. So it came that she made his house her home; and there she lived her unchildlike life, roaming the hills by day, and telling the curé strange tales as they sat by the firelight after the darkness came, till the priest wondered if another Joan the Maid sat at his knee.

From the solitudes she had brought strange fancies; fantastic forms and faces had she seen in the mist on the river, a throb of divine heart-break had she caught in the moaning before the storm, or a strain of weird, unearthly music in the song of the hermit thrush, “but never Voices,” thought the curé, “she never says she has heard Voices,” and he waited, half expectant.

But Diâne grew as a child grows; and lo, there came a day when the priest looked at her, amazed, that she had grown up so soon. Then his trouble became an insistent thing. She was fifteen; there was no place for her in the village, surely none in the great world outside; there was the veil--and yes, he would speak to Monseigneur about that when next the good Bishop should come to St. Gregoire.

But before the Bishop came, St. Gregoire had been jostled by the world beyond the hills. Men from the outside came into the valley, drawing lines and measuring and placing markers here and there; the iron road was coming through St. Gregoire, perhaps.

From an eyrie on the mountain side Diâne watched the work of the strangers with curiosity. She could understand the work of the beavers and the foxes and the birds, of the wind and the rain, the frost and sunshine, even the work of the unseen things, but these strangers she could not explain.

Then one day, away up at little Lake in the Sky, she came upon one of them. He was young, very young, and never before had Diâne seen eyes the color of the sky, nor hair that shone like sunlight, for the blood of the Indian women of the past was very persistent in St. Gregoire.

To his words in English Diâne shook her head; to his halting French she answered: “I am Diâne Doré, and I live down there,” pointing to the valley.

But Diâne asked no questions; she had found him in the forest on the mountain, as she had found nearly every thing of which she knew; there was nothing unusual in question. And so it was that youth, strong and virile, met youth in its virgin freshness and they walked hand in hand, unconscious and content.

But Père Dufresne was not content. “No, no, my child,” said he, “you must not be with the stranger. It is not well for thee, it is not well.”

“But why not, _mon père_?” asked Diâne in surprise. “I like to be with him; I tell him many things; he knows so little of all this,” with a sweep of her hand toward the hills, the river and the sky, “and he is glad to know, very glad. Why should I not be with him to tell him?”

Poor Père Dufresne stammered in embarrassment. Surely the Evil One was digging pitfalls and laying snares to entrap him, for never before had his work brought him such a problem as this, never before had one been so dear to him as Diâne, for she had touched the man-father in the priest, and it wrung his heart to say aught to change the child--“_ma petite pucelle_,” he called her in his thoughts. Why could she not have been like all the rest to him, and why need this stranger have come to St. Gregoire--St. Gregoire so little and almost lost away back of the hills?

“He is English and perhaps a heretic,” he argued, hoping thus to avoid the difficulty.

“I do not know that,” she answered doubtfully. “He signs the cross as I have told him. I will ask him.”

And so Père Dufresne, tender-hearted old man that he was, left the matter, hoping--as so many a wiser man has done--that _le bon Dieu_ in His omnipotence would order the matter to his liking.

In good time the engineers finished their work and went on, but the boy remained, for he was not of them. He had come for the fishing, the shooting, for the primitive life he might find; he might go or stay as he chose, and the unreckoning will of youth said, “I have found that which is good in my sight; I shall stop to enjoy.”

Days are to youth what years are to age, and well might Père Dufresne be dismayed at the result of his indecision. Who shall say when boyhood goes and manhood comes? Who shall say, that minute love was not, this minute it is? Certain it was that the boy listened to Diâne’s half-savage, half-religious mysticism, charmed and absorbed. The old druid spirit, that had worshipped under the oak trees of Britain lived again in this son of an ancient soil, and in the reincarnation the boy became a man and loved this woman, unconsciously and naturally as the flower loves the sunlight, or the bird the freedom of the air.

But when she was not with him, when he sat by his campfire with the darkness about him, he remembered that he was from beyond the hills; he saw his lady-mother and the ivy-grown walls of home, a home which would be prison to Diâne, a home in which he knew she could never have a place. Then he saw Diâne, saw the beauty of her eyes, heard the sweetness of her voice, above all felt the purity of her spirit; and it was Diâne of whom he dreamed.

These musings by his campfire kept alive the man of convention, and he knew he must go down to the priest in the valley and claim this woman in the way decreed by man.

Summer passed and the foliage glowed and faded. Indian summer came, like a flower flung back by a band of revelers as they danced madly and merrily away; then the nights became crisp and frosty, and the day arrived when he said to Diâne as they sat watching the passing of the wild geese: “I saw the geese yesterday; I saw them the day before; to-day--to-morrow, perhaps--soon I must follow. I must leave the hills.”

* * * * *

She turned to him quickly with a look and gesture of startled bewilderment. He leaned forward and laid his hand on hers.

“Look at me, Diâne--straight in my eyes as I talk to you. You can come with me. Think of it. Away together to see more beautiful things, away to the southward with the wild geese, till the cold is gone, then to rivers and lakes and mountains again. We shall be together all the days--always; we shall watch the sunrise and sunset together; we shall stand before the priest and he shall send us away man and wife. Do you know why people marry, Diâne? Because they want each other as I want you, to have against all others--because they love. Do you know what I mean? Can you want me like that, Diâne?”

As he bent nearer to her she felt the hand clasping hers tighten, and the blood throbbing in his fingers. For a long time they sat and her gaze did not falter. The companionship of the weeks had changed, and she felt a new knowledge and a new joy, indefinable yet overwhelming. Then slowly she answered him.

“Yes, I want you like that. I know what you mean. But--there is more. I cannot tell what it is; perhaps I know not the words. Can you say it?”

“No, Diâne, sweetheart, only that it is love, and no one can tell what it is. It is like life, we can only live it, dear.”

“Then we will live it together, you and I,” she said.

And she listened to Love’s old tale, not with blushes, not with downcast eyes, but with face and eyes lifted to her lover with a glad new light in them. And he said not that the world was well lost for love--the world was forgotten.

* * * * *

They went hand in hand down the hillside, straight to the priest’s door. The old man wept with remorse, and blamed himself for neglected duty, while Diâne stood in silent distress. At last, falling on her knees by his side, she pressed his fingers to her lips and pleaded.

“Ah, _mon père_, _mon père_, you hurt me so. Is it you do not now love your little Diâne? Look at the others in the parish; you have blessed them and let them go away together, and you did not weep. I love you, _mon père_, but I must go, I must go. Let me go like the rest.”

Sadly Père Dufresne placed his hand on her bowed head and smoothed her heavy, black hair. “It has come, even to my little maid, _ma petite pucelle_, whom I had thought so far removed from man’s love. My daughter, this love of man brings labor and sorrow, brings pain and tears, and you would go even if it must be that you shall bear pain and sorrow and weep your tears alone?”

He spoke more to himself than to her, but she raised her head and answered quickly as if understanding his meaning, or it may be the new-born woman spoke within her.

“Yes, father, I see the women labor, and the labor is hard and the days are long; I see the children many, and the women grow old with each one; and I saw Delize Paquette crying because there was no one to stand in the church as father to her baby; but, _mon père_, I see, too, the men and women coming from the long day’s labor together, and they are happy; I see the children bring smiles to their mothers’ tired eyes, and again they are happy; and I see Delize kiss her baby, even as my mother kissed me, and she is happier with that kiss than Madame Bisson who has no child. Bless me and let me go, _mon père_, for my happiness has gone before and beckons to me, and always I see the man’s love leading it.”

“Enough, my daughter, it shall be as you wish, and may Our Lady have you in her holy keeping.”