The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 3

There now, don't you dare to set down so Grammer can see you lookin'

good."

"Lionel Jones, you throw that old pop-corn overboard. Do you want to eat it after you've had it on the floor?"

"Does your stomach hurt you, dear? Well, here don't cry Mommer'll give you another cruller."

With much shouting of jocular advice from the male pa.s.sengers the _Fall of Rome_ was warped into Chadwick's Landing and the waiting groups came aboard. As they streamed on, bearing bundles and boxes and all the impedimenta of excursions, those already on board congregated on the after-deck to distinguish familiar faces. A few persons had come down to the landing merely to look upon the embarkation.

These, not going themselves on the excursion, maintained an air of benevolent superiority that could not conceal vivid curiosity. Among them, eagerly scanning the faces on deck was a very small thin woman clad in a gingham dress, on her head a battered straw hat of accentuated by-gone mode, and an empty provision-basket swinging on her arm. Mrs.

Tinneray peering down on her through smoked gla.s.ses, suddenly started violently. "My sakes," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "my sakes," then as the dramatic significance of the thing gripped her, "My--my--my, ain't that _terrible_?"

Solemnly, with prunella portentousness, Mrs. Tinneray stole back of the other pa.s.sengers leaning over the rail up to Mrs. Bean, who turned to her animatedly, exclaiming,

"They've got a new schoolhouse. I can just see the cupola--there's some changes since I was here. They tell me there's a flag sidewalk in front of the Methodist church and that young Baxter the express agent has growed a mustache, and's got married."

Mrs. Tinneray did not answer. She laid a compelling hand on Mrs. Bean's shoulder and turned her so that she looked straight at the small group of home-stayers down on the wharf. She pointed a sepulchral finger,

"_That there, in the brown with the basket, is Hetty Cronney, own sister to Mis' Josiah Tuttle._"

Mrs. Bean clutched her reticule and leaned over the rail, gasping with interest.

"Ye don't say--that's her? My! My! My!"

In solemn silence the two regarded the little brown woman so unconscious of their gaze. By the piteous wizened face screwed up in the sunlight, by the faded hair, nut-cracker jaws, and hollow eyes they utterly condemned Mrs. Tuttle, who, blue feathers floating, was also absorbed in watching the stream of embarking excursionists.

Mrs. Tinneray, after a whispered consultation with Mrs. Bean went up and nudged her; without ceremony she pointed,

"Your sister's down there on the wharf," she announced flatly, "come on over where we are and you can see her."

Frivolous Mrs. Tuttle turned and encountered a pair of eyes steely in their determination. Re-adjusting the gold cage more comfortably on its camp-stool and murmuring a blessing on the hooked-beak occupant, the azure lady tripped off in the wake of her flat-heeled friend.

Meanwhile Mr. Tinneray, standing well aft, was calling cheerfully down to the little figure on the wharf.

"Next Summer you must git your nerve up and come along. Excursions is all the rage nowadays. My wife's took in four a'ready."

But little Mrs. Cronney did not answer. Shading her eyes from the sun glare, she was establis.h.i.+ng recognizance with her cerulean relative who, waving a careless blue-mitted hand, called down in girlish greeting,

"Heigho, Hetty, how's Cronney? Why ain't you to the excursion?"

The little woman on the wharf was seen to wince slightly. She s.h.i.+fted her brown basket to the other arm, ignoring the second question.

"Oh, Cronney's good--ony he's low-spirited--seems as tho he couldn't get no work."

"Same old crooked stick, hey?" Mrs. Tuttle called down facetiously.

Mrs. Bean and Mrs. Tinneray stole horrified glances at each other. One planted a cotton-gloved hand over an opening mouth. But little Mrs.

Cronney, standing alone on the pier was equal to the occasion. She shook out a small and spotless handkerchief, blowing her nose with elegant deliberation before she replied,

"Well--I don't know as he needs to work _all_ the time; Cronney is _peculiar_, you know, he's one of them that is high-toned and nifty about money--he ain't like _some_, clutching onto every penny!"

By degrees, other excursionists, leaning over the railing, began to catch at something spicy in the situation of these two sisters brought face to face. At Mrs. Cronney's sally, one of the funny men guffawed his approval. Groups of excursionists explained to each other that that lady down there, her on the wharf, in the brown, was own sister to Mrs.

Josiah Tuttle!

The whistle of the _Fall of Rome_ now sounded for all aboard. It was a dramatic moment, the possibilities of which suddenly gripped Mrs.

Tinneray. She clasped her hands in effortless agony. This lady, as she afterward related to Mrs. Bean, felt mean! She could see in her mind's eye, she said, how it all looked to Hetty Cronney, the _Fall of Rome_ with its opulent leisurely cla.s.s of excursionists steaming away from her lonely little figure on the wharf; while Mabel Tuttle, selfish devourer of the Hutches' substance and hair to everything, would still be handing aroun' her boxes of French-mixed and talking baby talk to that there bird!

At the moment, Mrs. Tinneray's mind, dwelling upon the golden cage and its over-estimated occupant, became a mere boiling of savage desires.

Suddenly the line of grim resolution hardened on her face. This look, one that the Tinneray children invariably connected with the switch hanging behind the kitchen door, Mr. Tinneray also knew well. Seeing it now, he hastened to his wife.

"What's the matter, Mother, seasick? Here I'll git you a lemon."

Mrs. Tinneray, jaw set, eyes rolling, was able to intimate that she needed no lemon, but she drew her husband mysteriously aside. She fixed him with a foreboding glare, she said it was a wonder the Lord didn't sink the boat! Then she rapidly sketched the tragedy--Mrs. Tuttle serene and pampered on the deck, and Hetty Cronney desolate on the wharf! She p.r.o.nounced verdict.

"It's _terrible_--that's what it is!"

Mr. Tinneray with great sagacity said he'd like to show Mabel Tuttle her place--then he nudged his wife and chuckled admiringly,

"But yet for all, Hetty's got her tongue in her head yet--say, ain't she the little stinger?"

_Sotto voce_ Mr. Tinneray related to his spouse how Mabel Tuttle was bragging about her brick house and her shower-bath and her automobile and her hired girl, and how she'd druv herself and that there bird down to Boston and back.

"Hetty, she just stands there, just as easy, and hollers back that Cronney has bought a gramophone and how they sets by it day and night listening, and how it's son and daughter to 'em. Then she calls up to Mabel Tuttle, 'I should think you'd be afraid of meddlin' with them ottermobiles, _your_ time of life.'"

Mr. Tinneray choked over his own rendition of this audacity, but his wife sniffed hopelessly.

"_They_ ain't got no gramophone--_her_, with that face and hat?--Cronney don't make nothing; they two could _live_ on what that Blue Silk Quilt feeds that stinkin' parrot."

But Mr. Tinneray chuckled again, he seemed to be possessed with the humor of some delightful secret. Looking carefully around him and seeing every one absorbed in other things he leaned closer to his wife.

"She's liable to lose that bird," he whispered. "Them young fellers with the canes--they're full of their devilment--well, they wanted I shouldn't say nothing and I ain't sayin' nothing--only--"

Fat Mr. Tinneray, pale eyes rolling in merriment, pointed to the camp-stool where once the parrot's cage had rested and where now no parrot-cage was to be seen.

"As fur as I can see," he nudged his wife again, "that bird's liable to get left ash.o.r.e."

For a moment Mrs. Tinneray received this news stolidly, then a look of comprehension flashed over her face. "What you talkin' about, Henry?"

she demanded. "Say, ain't you never got grown up? Where's Manda Bean?"

Having located Mrs. Bean, the two ladies indulged in a rapid whispered conversation. Upon certain revelations made by Mrs. Bean, Mrs. Tinneray turned and laid commands upon her husband.

"Look here," she said, "that what you told me is true--them young fellers--" she fixed Mr. Tinneray with blue-gla.s.sed significant eyes, adding _sotto voce_, "_You keep Mabel Tuttle busy_."

Fat Mr. Tinneray, chuckling anew, withdrew to the after-rail where the azure lady still stood, chained as it were in a sort of stupor induced by the incisive thrusts of the forlorn little woman on the wharf. He joined in the conversation.

"So yer got a gramophone, hey," he called down kindly--"Say, that's nice, ain't it?--that's company fer you and Cronney." He appealed to Mrs. Tuttle in her supposed part of interested relative. "Keeps 'em from gettin' lonesome and all," he explained.

That lady looking a pointed unbelief, could not, with the other excursionists watching, but follow his lead.

"Why--er--ye-ess, that's rill nice," she agreed, with all the patronage of the wealthy relative.