Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man Part 25

At the door the Pole would turn, and look back, with the wistfully animal look of the Under Dog.

"Those cheeldren, they make to get you the leetle bug. You mebbe like that, Meester, yes? They make to get you plenty much bug, those cheeldren. We _all_ make to get you the bug, Meester, thank you."

"That's mighty nice of you folks." Then one felt the note in the quiet voice which explained his hold upon people.

"h.e.l.l, no. We _like_ to do that for you, Meester. Thank you." And closing the door gently after him, he would slink off.

"They don't need to be so allfired grateful," said John Flint frankly.

"Parson, I'm the guy to be grateful. I got a whole heap more out of that s.h.i.+ndy than a black eye and a pretty mouth. I was bluemolding for a man-tussle, and that sc.r.a.p set me up again. You see--I wasn't sure of myself any more, and it was souring on my stomach. Now I know I haven't lost out, I feel like a white man. Yep, it gives a fellow the holiday-heart to be dead sure he's plenty able to use his fists if he's got to. Westmoreland's right about that."

I was discreetly silent. G.o.d forgive me, in my heart I also was most sinfully glad my b.u.t.terfly Man could and would use his fists when he had to. I do not believe in peace at any price. I know very well that wrong must be conquered before right can prevail. But I shouldn't have been so set up!

"Here," said he one morning. "Ask Madame to give this to Jan's wife.

And say, beg her for heaven's sake to buy some salve for her eyelids, will you?" "This" was a small roll of bills. "I owe it to Jan," he explained, with his twistiest smile.

Westmoreland's skill removed all outward marks of the fray, and the b.u.t.terfly Man went his usual way; but although he had laid at rest one cruel doubt, he was still in deep waters. Because of his stress his clothes had begun to hang loosely upon him.

Now the naturalist who knows anything at all of those deep mysterious well-springs underlying his great profession, understands that he is a 'prentice hand learning his trade in the workshop of the Almighty; wherein "_the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made_." As Paul on a time reminded the Romans.

Wherefore I who had learned somewhat from the Little Peoples now applied what they had taught me, and when I saw my man grow restless, move about aimlessly, withdraw into himself and become as one blind and dumb and unhearing, I understood he was facing a change, making ready to project himself into some larger phase of existence as yet in the womb of the future. So I did not question what wind drove him forth before it like a lost leaf. The loving silent companions.h.i.+p of red Kerry, the friendly faces of young children to whom he was kind, the eyes of poor men and women looking to him for help, these were better for him now than I.

But my mother was not a naturalist, and she was provoked with John Flint. He ate irregularly, he slept as it pleased G.o.d. He was "running wild" again. This displeased her, particularly as Appleboro had at her instigation included Mr. John Flint in its most exclusive list, and there were invitations she was determined he should accept. She had put her hand to the social plow in his behalf, and she had no faintest notion of withdrawing it. Once fairly aroused, Madame had that able-bodied will heaven seems to have lavished so plenteously upon small women: In recompense, I dare say, for lack of size.

Therefore Mr. Flint duteously appeared at intervals among the elect, and appeared even to advantage. And my mother remarked, complacently, that blood will tell: he had the air! He was not expected to dance, but he was a superb cardplayer. He never told jokes, and so avoided deadly repet.i.tion. He had in a large measure that virtue the Chinese extol--the virtue of allowing others to save their faces in peace. Was it any wonder Mr. Flint's social position was soon solidly established?

He played the game as my mother forced it upon him, though at times, I think, it bored and chafed him sorely. What chafed him even more sorely was the unprecedented interest many young ladies--and some old enough to know better--suddenly evinced in entomology.

Mr. Flint almost overnight developed a savage cunning in eluding the seekers of entomological lore. One might suppose a single man would rejoice to see his drab workroom swarm with these brightly-colored fluttering human b.u.t.terflies; he bore their visits as visitations, displaying the chastened resignation Job probably showed toward the latest ultra-sized carbuncle.

"Cheer up!" urged Laurence, who was watching this turn of affairs with unfeeling mirth. "The worst is yet to come. These are only the chickens: wait until the hens get on your trail!"

"Mr. Flint," said Mary Virginia one afternoon, rubbing salt into his smarting wounds, "Mr. Flint, I am so glad all the girls like you so much. You fascinate them. They say you are such a profoundly clever and interesting man, Mr. Flint! Why, some of those girls are perfectly demented about you!"

"Demented," said he, darkly, "is the right word for them when it comes down to fussing about _me_." Now Laurence had just caught him in his rooms, and, declaring that he looked overworked and pale, had dragged him forcibly outside on the porch, where we were now sitting. Mary Virginia, in a white skirt, sport coat, and a white felt hat which made her entrancingly pretty, had been visiting my mother and now strolled over to John Flint's, after her old fas.h.i.+on.

"I feel like making the greatest sort of a fuss about you myself," she said honestly. "Anyhow, I'm mighty glad girls like you. It's a good sign."

"If they do--though G.o.d knows I can't see why--I'm obliged to them, seeing it pleases _you_!" said Flint, without, however, showing much grat.i.tude in eyes or voice. "To tell you the truth, it looks to me at times as if they were wished on me."

Mary Virginia tried to look horrified, and giggled instead.

"If I could only make any of them understand anything!" said the b.u.t.terfly Man desperately, "but I can't. If only they really wanted to know, I'd be more than glad to teach them. But they don't. I show them and show them and tell them and tell them, over and over and over again, and the same thing five minutes later, and they haven't even listened! They don't care. What do they take up my time and say they like my b.u.t.terflies for, when they don't like them at all and don't want to know anything about them? That's what gets me!"

Laurence winked at Mary Virginia, shamelessly.

"Bugs!" said he, inelegantly. "That's what's intended to get you, you old duffer!"

"Mr. Flint," said Mary Virginia, with dancing eyes. "I don't blame those girls one single solitary bit for wanting to know all about--b.u.t.terflies."

"But they don't want to know, I tell you!" Mr. Flint's voice rose querulously.

"My dear creature, I'd be stuck on you myself if I were a girl," said Laurence sweetly. "Padre, prepare yourself to say, 'Bless you, my children!' I see this innocent's finish." And he began to sing, in a lackadaisical manner, through his nose:

"Now you're married you must obey, You must be true to all you say, Live together all your life--"

No answering smile came to John Flint's lips. He made no reply to the light banter, but stiffened, and stared ahead of him with a set face and eyes into which crept an expression of anguish. Mary Virginia, with a quick glance, laid her hand on his arm.

"Don't mind Laurence and me, we're a pair of sillies. You and the Padre are too good to put up with us the way you do," she said, coaxingly. "And--we girls do like you, Mr. Flint, whether we're wished on you or not."

That seductive "we" in that golden voice routed him, horse and foot.

He looked at the small hand on his arm, and his glance went swiftly to the sweet and innocent eyes looking at him with such frank friendliness.

"It's better than I deserve," he said, gently enough. "And it isn't I'm not grateful to the rest of them for liking me,--if they do. It's that I want to box their ears when they pretend to like my insects, and don't."

"Being a gentleman has its drawbacks," said I, tentatively.

"Believe _me_!" he spoke with great feeling. "It's nothing short of doing a life-stretch!"

The boy and girl laughed gaily. When he spoke thus it added to his unique charm. So profoundly were they impressed with what he had become, that even what he had been, as they remembered it, increased their respect and affection. That past formed for him a somber background, full of half-lights and shadows, against which he stood out with the revealing intensity of a Rembrandt portrait.

"What I came over to tell you, is that Madame says you're to stay home this evening, Mr. Flint," said Mary Virginia, comfortably. "I'm spending the night with Madame, you're to know, and we're planning a nice folksy informal sort of a time; and you're to be home."

"Orders from headquarters," commented Laurence.

"All right," agreed the b.u.t.terfly Man, briefly.

Mary Virginia shook out her white skirts, and patted her black hair into even more distractingly pretty disorder.

"I've got to get back to the office--mean case I'm working on,"

complained Laurence. "Mary Virginia, walk a little way with me, won't you? Do, child! It will sweeten all my afternoon and make my work easier."

"You haven't grown up a bit--thank goodness!" said Mary Virginia. But she went with him.

The b.u.t.terfly Man looked after them speculatively.

"Mrs. Eustis," he remarked, "is an ambitious sort of a lady, isn't she? Thinks in millions for her daughter, expects her to make a great match and all that. Miss Sally Ruth told me she'd heard Mrs. Eustis tried once or twice to pull off a match to suit herself, but Miss Mary Virginia wouldn't stand for it."

"Why, naturally, Mrs. Eustis would like to see the child well settled in life," said I.

"Oh, you don't have to be a Christian _all_ the time," said he calmly.

"I know Mrs. Eustis, too. She talked to me for an hour and a half without stopping, one night last week. See here, parson: Inglesby's got a roll that outweighs his record. Suppose he wants to settle down and reform--with a young wife to help him do it--wouldn't it be a real Christian job to lady's-aid him?"

I eyed him askance.

"Now there's Laurence," went on the b.u.t.terfly Man, speculatively.

"Laurence is making plenty of trouble, but not so much money. No, Mrs.

Eustis wouldn't faint at the notion of Inglesby, but she'd keel over like a perfect lady at the bare thought of Laurence."

"I don't see," said I, crossly, "why she should be called upon to faint for either of them. Inglesby's--Inglesby. That makes him impossible. As for the boy, why, he rocked that child in her cradle."