Daniel Dott, as has been intimated, did not share his wife"s love for lodge meetings. He attended them because she did, and wished him to, but he was not happy while they were going on. At this one he was distinctly unhappy. He saw Serena and Annette Black exchange greetings as if the little fencing match of the afternoon had been but an exchange of compliments. He saw the two ladies go, arm in arm, to the platform, where sat the "Boston delegates." He nodded to masculine acquaintances in the crowd, other captives chained, like himself, to their wives" and daughters" chariot wheels. He heard the applause which greeted Serena"s opening speech of introduction. He heard the Boston delegates speak, and Mrs. Black"s gracious response to the request for a few words from the president of our Scarford Chapter. He heard it all, but, when it was over, he could not have repeated a sentence of all those which had reached his ears.
No, Captain Dan was not happy at this, the most successful "open meeting" ever held by the Trumet Chapter of the Guild of Ladies of Honor. He was thinking, and thinking hard. Aunt Lavinia"s will had changed their position in life, so Serena had said. She had said other things, also, and he was beginning, dimly, to realize what they might mean.
CHAPTER IV
"SCARFORD!" screamed the brakeman, throwing open the car door.
"Scarford!"
Mrs. Dott, umbrella in hand, was already in the aisle. Captain Dan, standing between the seats, was struggling to get the suitcase down from the rack above. It was a brand-new suitcase. Serena had declared that their other, the one which had accompanied them on various trips to Boston during the past eight years, was altogether too shabby. She had insisted on buying another, and, the stock in the store not being good enough, had selected this herself from the catalog of a Boston manufacturer. Her umbrella, silk with a silver handle, was new also. So was her hat, her gown and her shoes. So, too, was the captain"s hat, and his suit and light overcoat. There was a general air of newness about the Dotts, so apparent, particularly on Daniel"s part, that various pa.s.sengers had nudged each other, winked, and whispered surmises concerning recent marriage and a honeymoon trip.
The suitcase, the buckle of which had caught in the meshes of the rack, giving way, came down unexpectedly and with a thump on the seat. The captain hurriedly lifted it. A stifled laugh from the occupants of adjacent seats reached Serena"s ears.
"What is it?" she demanded impatiently. "Aren"t you coming? Do hurry."
"I--I"m comin"," stammered her husband, thrusting his fist into the new hat which, as it lay on the seat, had received the weight of the falling suitcase. "I"m comin". Go ahead! I"ll be right along."
He pounded the battered "derby" into more or less presentable shape, clapped it on his head, and, suitcase in hand, followed his wife.
Through the crowd on the platform they pa.s.sed, through the waiting room and out to the sidewalk. There Captain Dan put down the case, gave the maltreated hat a brush with his sleeve, and looked about him.
"Lively place, ain"t it, Serena?" he observed. "Whew! that valise is heavy. Well, where"s the next port of call?"
"We"ll go to the hotel first. Oh, dear, it"s a shame things happened so we had to come now. In another fortnight the Blacks would have been here and we could have gone right to their house. Mrs. Black felt dreadfully about it. She said so ever so many times."
The captain made no answer. If he had doubts concerning the depths of the Blacks" sorrow he kept them to himself. Picking up the suitcase, he stepped forward to the curb.
"Where are you going?" demanded his wife.
"Why, to the hotel. That"s where you wanted to go, wasn"t it?"
"Certainly; but how were you going? You don"t know where it is."
"No, so I don"t. But I can hail one of those electrics and ask the conductor to stop when he got to it. He"d know where "twas, most likely."
"Electric" is the Down East term for trolley car, lines of which were pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing the station. Daniel waved his disengaged hand to the conductor of the nearest. The car stopped.
"Wait a minute," said Serena quickly. "How do you know that car is going the right way?"
"Hey? Well, of course I don"t know, but--"
"Of course you don"t. Besides, we don"t want to go in an electric. We must take a carriage."
"A carriage? A hack, you mean. What do we want to do that for?"
"Because it"s what everyone does."
"No, they don"t. Look at all the folks on that electric now. Besides, we--"
"Hi there!" shouted the conductor of the car angrily. "Brace up! Get a move on, will you?"
Mrs. Dott regarded him with dignity.
"We"re not coming," she said. "You can go right along."
The car proceeded, the conductor commenting freely and loudly, and the pa.s.sengers on the broad grin.
"Now, Daniel," said Serena, "you get one of those carriages and we"ll go as we ought to. I know we"ve always gone in the electrics when we were in Boston, but then we didn"t feel as if we could afford anything else.
Now we can. And don"t stop to bargain about the fare. What is fifty cents more or less to US?"
The captain shook his head, but he obeyed orders. A few minutes later they were seated in a cab, drawn by a venerable horse and driven by a man with a hooked nose, and were moving toward the Palatine House, the hostelry recommended by Mrs. Black as the finest in Scarford.
"There!" said Serena, leaning back against the shabby cushions, "this is better than an electric, isn"t it? And when we get to the hotel you"ll see the difference it will make in the way they treat us. Mrs. Black says there is everything in a first impression. If people judge by your looks that you"re no account they"ll treat you that way. But what were you and the driver having such a talk about?"
Captain Dan grinned. "I got the name of the hotel wrong at first," he admitted. "I called it the Palestine House instead of the other thing.
The driver thought I was makin" fun of him. It ain"t safe to mention Palestine to a feller with a nose like that."
The Palatine House was new and gorgeous; built in the hope of attracting touring automobilists, it was that dreary mistake, a cheap imitation of the swagger metropolitan article. Scarford was not a metropolis, and the imitation in this case was a particularly poor one. However, to the Dotts, its marble-floored lobby and gilded pillars and cornices were grand and imposing. Their room on the third floor looked out upon the street below, and if the view of shops and signs and trucks and trolleys was not beautiful it was, at least, distinctly different from any view in Trumet.
Serena gloried in it.
"Ah!" she sighed, "this is something like. THIS is life! There"s something going on here, Daniel. Don"t you feel it?"
Daniel was counting his small change.
"What say?" he asked.
His wife repeated her question, raising her voice to carry above the noises of the street.
"Feel it! Yes, yes; and hear it, too. How we"re ever goin" to sleep with all that hullabaloo outside I don"t know. Don"t you suppose we could get a quieter room than this, Serena?"
"I don"t want a quiet room. I don"t want to sleep. I feel as if I"d been asleep all my life. Now, thank goodness, I am where people are really awake. What are you doing with that money?"
"Oh, just lookin" at it, while I can. I shan"t have the chance very long, if the other folks in this town are like that hack driver. A dollar to drive half a mile in that hea.r.s.e! Why, the whole shebang wa"n"t worth more than two dollars, to buy. And then he had the cheek to ask me to give him "a quarter for himself.""
"Yes, that was his tip. We must expect that. Gertrude says she always has to tip the servants and drivers and such at college. Did you give it to him?"
"Who? Me? I told him I was collectin" for a museum, and I"d give him a quarter for the horse, just as it stood--or WHILE it stood. I said he"d better take the offer pretty quick because the critter looked as if "twould lay down most any minute."
He chuckled. Serena, however, was very solemn.
"Daniel," she said, "I must speak to you again about your language.
You"ve lived in Trumet so long that you talk just like Azuba, or pretty nearly as bad. You mustn"t say "critter" and "wa"n"t" and "cal"late." Do try, won"t you, to please me?"
"I"ll try, Serena. But I don"t see what difference it makes. We DO live in Trumet, don"t we?"