The Best Short Stories of 1915 Part 21

"M-m-m--my mouth! Ouch! My m--mouth!"

"Gee, you cute little thing, you! See, my mouth's the same way too.

Feels like a knot. Gee, you cute little thing, you--all puckered up and all."

And he must link her arm in his and crunch-crunch over the brittle leaves and up a hillside to a plateau of rock overlooking the flaming country; and from the valley below, smoke from burning mounds of leaves wound in spirals, its pungency drifting to them.

"See that tree there? It's a oak. Look; from a little acorn like this it grew. See, this is a acorn, and in the start that tree wasn't no bigger than this little thing."

"Quit your kiddin'!" But she smiled and her lips were parted sweetly; and always unformed tears would gloze her eyes.

"Here, sit here, little lady. Wait till I spread this newspaper out.

Gee! Don't I wish you didn't have to go back to the city by two o'clock, little lady! We could make a great day of it here, out in the country; lunch at a farm and see the sun set and all. Some day of it we could make if--"

"I--I don't have to go back, Eddie."

His face expanded into his widest smile.

"Gee, that's great! That's just great!"

Silence.

"What you thinking of, little lady, sitting there so pretty and all?"

"N-nothing."

"Nothing? Aw, surely something!"

A tear formed and zigzagged down her cheek.

"Nothing, honest; only I--I feel right happy."

"That's just how you oughtta feel, little lady."

"In three months, if--aw, ain't I the nut?"

"It'll be a big Christmas, won't it, little missy, for both of us? A big Christmas for both of us; you as sound and round as a peach again, and me shooting up like a skyrocket on the pay roll."

A laugh bubbled to her lips before the tear was dry.

"In three months I won't be a T.B., not even a little bit."

"Sh-h-h! On the farm we wasn't allowed to say even that. We wasn't supposed to even know what them letters mean."

"Don't you know what they mean, Eddie?"

"Sure I do!" He leaned toward her and placed his hand lightly over hers.

"T.B.--True Blue--that's what they mean, little lady."

She could feel the veins in his palm throbbing.

MR. EBERDEEN'S HOUSE[9]

By ARTHUR JOHNSON

From _The Century_

[9] Copyright, 1915, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1916, by Arthur Johnson.

It loomed there, high and large, uncompromised by the gloom of mist about it, unruffled by the easterly gusts that bent the two rows of larches which stretched in deliberate diagonal lines from the street to the corners of its grim facade. Hastings could hear the beating of the sea; it was probably in that chaos of s.p.a.ce behind the house. As he stood leaning against one of the tall gate-posts and surveying the scene, he began to feel, almost in spite of himself, in sympathy with it.

A motor drew up near where he stood. Instinctively his attention was directed from it to the green Georgian portal, which at the moment was drawn in to permit somebody to pa.s.s out. She was in glaring contrast to her setting; she was fresh and lovely, young and fas.h.i.+onable-looking.

She paused on the wide stone step, glanced up at the sky, opened her umbrella, and briskly proceeded down the avenue to the gate. Within a few yards of it she raised her eyes from the puddled gravel and started back at sight of him.

"Jack!" she cried out. "How did you get here? Why didn't you tell me? I am this minute on my way to meet you."

"I'm admiring your summer home, Julia--Julia dear," he said to her, a little constrained. "It's sad and desolate, and everything that I suppose you want it to be. I expected to hate it. I thought that having spent most of my life away from all this, I should have lost every sc.r.a.p of--tolerance for New England. But ever since I set foot in Rockface--"

"When _did_ you, Jack?" she demanded.

"An hour ago. I've been in the strangest mood ever since."

"Come, now, and tell me about it," she suddenly saw the need to say, walking away from him to dismiss the grinning chauffeur.

Hastings lingered alone in the hall.

"It's much nicer by the fire," Julia called to him impatiently from the next room. And he followed the sound of her voice; he moved slowly over to a chair, opposite her own, and sat down, forgetting to talk.

"I vow I'm amused," she exclaimed, "at the way you take it. You've made letters full of fun of me for settling my parents 'on that ugly little Ma.s.sachusetts point'; you've laid it all down to my 'Middle-Western love of Puritan relics' and 'Eastern culturine,' and scorned my 'romantic inexperience'; and here you come, redolent of Europe, to be as much impressed by our choice as if you were a Montana school-girl!" He smiled back, but it was obvious that he hadn't heard a word. "What's the matter with you, Jacky?" she asked interestedly; "had a bad journey?"

He tried to concentrate his faculties on looking genial and at the same time intelligent.

"It was just like me, Julia," he began, the ghost of cheerfulness on his face. "I took the earliest sort of train, instead of the one I telephoned you I'd take. You see, to have landed at night, after all the years--think of it! And then to go walking around by myself, seeing things crop suddenly up that I hadn't thought of since--well--scarcely since I was born. No wonder I couldn't sleep. This morning, like a stranded idiot, I got out at that little way-station of yours, and realized for the first time that I didn't have a blessed idea where you lived."

"Rockface is about as enormous as a biscuit. Anybody could have told you."

"That's the strangest part of it," recollected Hastings. "You see, I had a curious hunch about it; I felt a little forsaken. I was actually surprised and irritated that somebody--I didn't know who--wasn't waiting to meet me.

"There was something about the place, Julia," he gravely pursued, "made me feel justified in thinking a hospitable welcome was due me ... Oh I don't mean because you were here! But--well--the veil of sea-turn that half-hid the buildings across the square made me feel the need of some kind of greeting--I expected one!--right on the spot! Can you understand? And--instead--the cold east wind blew round me as if I were an outcast.

"I stole down the first crooked street I came to. I stared at the house-fronts, at the little square panes of the sagging window-sashes, at the dingy doors, with those short, steep flights of steps leading down to the side-walks."

Julia sobered to a tentative frown. Jack's eyes were bigger than usual, and he did look, notwithstanding the feverish flush on his cheeks, rather f.a.gged. How she had been counting the days for him to come! It didn't seem possible that the visit which he had been promising for so long to make her should have finally materialized.

Wasn't it really an indication,--she pondered while again happily she sized up the situation,--if he took so much trouble for her, that he did, after all, care more perhaps than she had sometimes thought? But what an extraordinary meeting it had been! He had at once launched forth on this extreme discourse. She sat back, and let her eyes rest on him with amused tolerance, her smile attentively adjusted to suit his mood; for her moment's anxiety vanished at further sight of his strong, broad shoulders and the handsome appearance he made in her favorite high-back chair, his firm hands grasping the arms of it.

"You've stayed away from America too long," she said carelessly; "Paris is bad for you."