Seventeen Part 21

Purple and black again descended upon his soul, for he could not disguise from himself the d.a.m.natory fact that George had flitted with the lady, while he, wretched William, had been permitted to take care of the dog!

A spark of dignity still burned within him. He strode to the barn-yard fence, and, leaning over it, dropped Flopit rather brusquely at his mistress's feet. Then, without a word even without a look--William walked haughtily away, continuing his stern progress straight through the barn-yard gate, and thence onward until he found himself in solitude upon the far side of a smoke-house, where his hauteur vanished.

Here, in the shade of a great walnut-tree which sheltered the little building, he gave way--not to tears, certainly, but to faint murmurings and little heavings under impulses as ancient as young love itself. It is to be supposed that William considered his condition a lonely one, but if all the seventeen-year-olds who have known such halfhours could have shown themselves to him then, he would have fled from the mere horror of billions. Alas! he considered his sufferings a new invention in the world, and there was now inspired in his breast a monologue so eloquently bitter that it might deserve some such t.i.tle as A Pa.s.sion Beside the Smoke-house. During the little time that William spent in this sequestration he pa.s.sed through phases of emotion which would have kept an older man busy for weeks and left him wrecked at the end of them.

William's final mood was one of beautiful resignation with a kick in it; that is, he n.o.bly gave her up to George and added irresistibly that George was a big, fat lummox! Painting pictures, such as the billions of other young sufferers before him have painted, William saw himself a sad, gentle old bachelor at the family fireside, sometimes making the sacrifice of his reputation so that SHE and the children might never know the truth about George; and he gave himself the solace of a fierce scene or two with George: "Remember, it is for them, not you--you THING!"

After this human little reaction he pa.s.sed to a higher field of romance.

He would die for George and then she would bring the little boy she had named William to the lonely headstone--Suddenly William saw himself in his true and fitting character--Sydney Carton! He had lately read A Tale of Two Cities, immediately re-reading until, as he would have said, he "knew it by heart"; and even at the time he had seen resemblances between himself and the appealing figure of Carton. Now that the sympathy between them was perfected by Miss Pratt's preference for another, William decided to mount the scaffold in place of George Crooper. The scene became actual to him, and, setting one foot upon a tin milk-pail which some one had carelessly left beside the smoke-house, he lifted his eyes to the pitiless blue sky and unconsciously a.s.sumed the familiar att.i.tude of Carton on the steps of the guillotine. He spoke aloud those great last words:

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to--"

A whiskered head on the end of a long, corrugated red neck protruded from the smokehouse door.

"What say?" it inquired, huskily.

"Nun-nothing!" stammered William.

Eyes above whiskers became fierce. "You take your feet off that milk-bucket. Say! This here's a sanitary farm. 'Ain't you got any more sense 'n to go an'--"

But William had abruptly removed his foot and departed.

He found the party noisily established in the farm-house at two long tables piled with bucolic viands already being violently depleted.

Johnnie Watson had kept a chair beside himself vacant for William.

Johnnie was in no frame of mind to sit beside any "chattering girl,"

and he had protected himself by Joe Bullitt upon his right and the empty seat upon his left. William took it, and gazed upon the nearer foods with a slight renewal of animation.

He began to eat; he continued to eat; in fact, he did well. So did his two comrades. Not that the melancholy of these three was dispersed--far from it! With ineffaceable gloom they ate chicken, both white meat and dark, drumsticks, wishbones, and livers; they ate corn-on-the-cob, many ears, and fried potatoes and green peas and string-beans; they ate peach preserves and apricot preserves and preserved pears; they ate biscuits with grape jelly and biscuits with crabapple jelly; they ate apple sauce and apple b.u.t.ter and apple pie. They ate pickles, both cuc.u.mber pickles and pickles made of watermelon rind; they ate pickled tomatoes, pickled peppers, also pickled onions. They ate lemon pie.

At that, they were no rivals to George Crooper, who was a real eater.

Love had not made his appet.i.te ethereal to-day, and even the attending Swedish lady named Anna felt some apprehension when it came to George and the gravy, though she was accustomed to the prodigies performed in this line by the robust hands on the farm. George laid waste his section of the table, and from the beginning he allowed himself scarce time to say, "I dunno why it is." The pretty companion at his side at first gazed dumfounded; then, with growing enthusiasm for what promised to be a really magnificent performance, she began to utter little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of wonder and admiration. With this music in his ears, George outdid himself. He could not resist the temptation to be more and more astonis.h.i.+ng as a heroic comedian, for these humors sometimes come upon vain people at country dinners.

George ate when he had eaten more than he needed; he ate long after every one understood why he was so vast; he ate on and on sheerly as a flourish--as a spectacle. He ate even when he himself began to understand that there was daring in what he did, for his was a toreador spirit so long as he could keep bright eyes fastened upon him.

Finally, he ate to decide wagers made upon his gorging, though at times during this last period his joviality deserted him. Anon his damp brow would be troubled, and he knew moments of thoughtfulness.

XXI

MY LITTLE SWEETHEARTS

When George did stop, it was abruptly, during one of these intervals of sobriety, and he and Miss Pratt came out of the house together rather quietly, joining one of the groups of young people chatting with after-dinner languor under the trees. However, Mr. Crooper began to revive presently, in the sweet air of outdoors, and, observing some of the more flas.h.i.+ng gentlemen lighting cigarettes, he was moved to laughter. He had not smoked since his childhood--having then been bonded through to twenty-one with a pledge of gold--and he feared that these smoking youths might feel themselves superior. Worse, Miss Pratt might be impressed, therefore he laughed in scorn, saying:

"Burnin' up ole trash around here, I expect!" He sniffed searchingly.

"Somebody's set some ole rags on fire." Then, as in discovery, he cried, "Oh no, only cigarettes!"

Miss Pratt, that tactful girl, counted four smokers in the group about her, and only one abstainer, George. She at once defended the smokers, for it is to be feared that numbers always had weight with her. "Oh, but cigarettes is lubly smell!" she said. "Untle Georgiec.u.ms maybe be too 'ittle boy for smokings!"

This archness was greeted loudly by the smokers, and Mr. Crooper was put upon his mettle. He spoke too quickly to consider whether or no the facts justified his a.s.sertion. "Me? I don't smoke paper and ole carpets.

I smoke cigars!"

He had created the right impression, for Miss Pratt clapped her hands.

"Oh, 'plendid! Light one, Untle Georgiec.u.ms! Light one ever 'n' ever so quick! P'eshus Flopit an' me we want see dray, big, 'normous man smoke dray, big, 'normous cigar!"

William and Johnnie Watson, who had been hovering morbidly, unable to resist the lodestone, came nearer, Johnnie being just in time to hear his cousin's reply.

"I--I forgot my cigar-case."

Johnnie's expression became one of biting skepticism. "What you talkin'

about, George? Didn't you promise Uncle George you'd never smoke till you're of age, and Uncle George said he'd give you a thousand dollars on your twenty-first birthday? What 'd you say about your 'cigar-case'?"

George felt that he was in a tight place, and the lovely eyes of Miss Pratt turned upon him questioningly. He could not flush, for he was already so pink after his exploits with unnecessary nutriment that more pinkness was impossible. He saw that the only safety for him lay in boisterous prevarication. "A thousand dollars!" he laughed loudly. "I thought that was real money when I was ten years old! It didn't stand in MY way very long, I guess! Good ole George wanted his smoke, and he went after it! You know how I am, Johnnie, when I go after anything. I been smokin' cigars I dunno how long!" Glancing about him, his eye became rea.s.sured; it was obvious that even Johnnie had accepted this airy statement as the truth, and to clinch plausibility he added: "When I smoke, I smoke! I smoke cigars straight along--light one right on the stub of the other. I only wish I had some with me, because I miss 'em after a meal. I'd give a good deal for something to smoke right now! I don't mean cigarettes; I don't want any paper--I want something that's all tobacco!"

William's pale, sad face showed a hint of color. With a pang he remembered the package of My Little Sweetheart All-Tobacco Cuban Cigarettes (the Package of Twenty for Ten Cents) which still reposed, untouched, in the breast pocket of his coat. His eyes smarted a little as he recalled the thoughts and hopes that had accompanied the purchase; but he thought, "What would Sydney Carton do?"

William brought forth the package of My Little Sweetheart All-Tobacco Cuban Cigarettes and placed it in the large hand of George Crooper. And this was a n.o.ble act, for William believed that George really wished to smoke. "Here," he said, "take these; they're all tobacco. I'm goin' to quit smokin', anyway." And, thinking of the name, he added, gently, with a significance lost upon all his hearers, "I'm sure you ought to have 'em instead of me."

Then he went away and sat alone upon the fence.

"Light one, light one!" cried Miss Pratt. "Ev'ybody mus' be happy, an'

dray, big, 'normous man tan't be happy 'less he have his all-tobatto smote. Light it, light it!"

George drew as deep a breath as his diaphragm, strangely oppressed since dinner, would permit, and then bravely lit a Little Sweetheart. There must have been some valiant blood in him, for, as he exhaled the smoke, he covered a slight choking by exclaiming, loudly: "THAT'S good! That's the ole stuff! That's what I was lookin' for!"

Miss Pratt was entranced. "Oh, 'plendid!" she cried, watching him with fascinated eyes. "Now take dray, big, 'normous puffs! Take dray, big, 'NORMOUS puffs!"

George took great, big, enormous puffs.

She declared that she loved to watch men smoke, and William's heart, as he sat on the distant fence, was wrung and wrung again by the vision of her playful ecstasies. But when he saw her holding what was left of the first Little Sweetheart for George to light a second at its expiring spark, he could not bear it. He dropped from the fence and moped away to be out of sight once more. This was his darkest hour.

Studiously avoiding the vicinity of the smokehouse, he sought the little orchard where he had beheld her sitting with George; and there he sat himself in sorrowful reverie upon the selfsame fallen tree. How long he remained there is uncertain, but he was roused by the sound of music which came from the lawn before the farmhouse. Bitterly he smiled, remembering that Wallace Banks had engaged Italians with harp, violin, and flute, promising great things for dancing on a fresh-clipped lawn--a turf floor being no impediment to seventeen's dancing. Music! To see her whirling and smiling sunnily in the fat grasp of that dancing bear! He would stay in this lonely orchard; SHE would not miss him.

But though he hated the throbbing music and the sound of the laughing voices that came to him, he could not keep away--and when he reached the lawn where the dancers were, he found Miss Pratt moving rhythmically in the thin grasp of Wallace Banks. Johnnie Watson approached, and spoke in a low tone, tinged with spiteful triumph.

"Well, anyway, ole fat George didn't get the first dance with her! She's the guest of honor, and Wallace had a right to it because he did all the work. He came up to 'em and ole fat George couldn't say a thing. Wallace just took her right away from him. George didn't say anything at all, but I s'pose after this dance he'll be rus.h.i.+n' around again and n.o.body else 'll have a chance to get near her the rest of the afternoon. My mother told me I ought to invite him over here, out I had no business to do it; he don't know the first principles of how to act in a town he don't live in!"

"Where'd he go?" William asked, listlessly, for Mr. Crooper was nowhere in sight.

"I don't know--he just walked off without sayin' anything. But he'll be back, time this dance is over, never you fear, and he'll grab her again and--What's the matter with Joe?"

Joseph Bullitt had made his appearance at a corner of the house, some distance from where they stood. His face was alert under the impulse of strong excitement, and he beckoned fiercely. "Come here!" And, when they had obeyed, "He's around back of the house by a kind of shed," said Joe.

"I think something's wrong. Come on, I'll show him to you."

But behind the house, whither they followed him in vague, strange hope, he checked them. "LOOK THERE!" he said.

His pointing finger was not needed. Sounds of paroxysm drew their attention sufficiently--sounds most poignant, soul-rending, and lugubrious. William and Johnnie perceived the large person of Mr.

Crooper; he was seated upon the ground, his back propped obliquely against the smoke-house, though this att.i.tude was not maintained constantly.