He walked slowly, enjoying the full moon, which sailed up a river in the sky--the open s.p.a.ce between the trees that lined the street--and as he pa.s.sed the house of Mr. Parcher he noted the fine white shape of a masculine evening bosom gleaming in the moonlight on the porch. A dainty figure in white sat beside it, and there was another white figure present, though this one was so small that Mr. Baxter did not see it at all. It was the figure of a tiny doglet, and it reposed upon the black masculine knees that belonged to the evening bosom.
Mr. Baxter heard a dulcet voice.
"He IS indifferink, isn"t he, sweetest Flopit? Seriously, though, Mr. Watson was telling me about you to-day. He says you"re the most indifferent man he knows. He says you don"t care two minutes whether a girl lives or dies. Isn"t he a mean ole wicked sing, p"eshus Flopit!"
The reply was inaudible, and Mr. Baxter pa.s.sed on, having recognized nothing of his own.
"These YOUNG fellows don"t have any trouble finding their dress-suits, I guess," he murmured. "Not on a night like this!"
... Thus William, after a hard day, came to the gates of his romance, entering those portals of the moon in triumph. At one stroke his dashing raiment gave him high superiority over Johnnie Watson and other rivals who might loom. But if he had known to what undoing this great coup exposed him, it is probable that Mr. Baxter would have appeared at the Emerson Club, that night, in evening clothes.
VIII
JANE
William"s period of peculiar sensitiveness dated from that evening, and Jane, in particular, caused him a great deal of anxiety. In fact, he began to feel that Jane was a mortification which his parents might have spared him, with no loss to themselves or to the world. Not having shown that consideration for anybody, they might at least have been less spinelessly indulgent of her. William"s bitter conviction was that he had never seen a child so starved of discipline or so lost to etiquette as Jane.
For one thing, her pa.s.sion for bread-and-b.u.t.ter, covered with apple sauce and powdered sugar, was getting to be a serious matter. Secretly, William was not yet so changed by love as to be wholly indifferent to this refection himself, but his consumption of it was private, whereas Jane had formed the habit of eating it in exposed places--such as the front yard or the sidewalk. At no hour of the day was it advisable for a relative to approach the neighborhood in fastidious company, unless prepared to acknowledge kinship with a spindly young person either eating bread-and-b.u.t.ter and apple sauce and powdered sugar, or all too visibly just having eaten bread-and-b.u.t.ter and apple sauce and powdered sugar. Moreover, there were times when Jane had worse things than apple sauce to answer for, as William made clear to his mother in an oration as hot as the July noon sun which looked down upon it.
Mrs. Baxter was pleasantly engaged with a sprinkling-can and some small flower-beds in the shady back yard, and Jane, having returned from various sidewalk excursions, stood close by as a spectator, her hands replenished with the favorite food and her chin rising and falling in gentle motions, little prophecies of the slight distensions which pa.s.sed down her slender throat with slow, rhythmic regularity. Upon this calm scene came William, plunging round a corner of the house, furious yet plaintive.
"You"ve got to do something about that child!" he began. "I CAN not stand it!"
Jane looked at him dumbly, not ceasing, how ever, to eat; while Mrs.
Baxter thoughtfully continued her sprinkling.
"You"ve been gone all morning, Willie," she said. "I thought your father mentioned at breakfast that he expected you to put in at least four hours a day on your mathematics and--"
"That"s neither here nor there," William returned, vehemently. "I just want to say this: if you don"t do something about Jane, I will! Just look at her! LOOK at her, I ask you! That"s just the way she looked half an hour ago, out on the public sidewalk in front of the house, when I came by here with Miss PRATT! That was pleasant, wasn"t it? To be walking with a lady on the public street and meet a member of my family looking like that! Oh, LOVELY!"
In the anguish of this recollection his voice cracked, and though his eyes were dry his gestures wept for him. Plainly, he was about to reach the most lamentable portion of his narrative. "And then she HOLLERED at me! She hollered, "Oh, WILL--EE!"" Here he gave an imitation of Jane"s voice, so d.a.m.natory that Jane ceased to eat for several moments and drew herself up with a kind of dignity. "She hollered, "Oh, WILL--EE" at me!" he stormed. "Anybody would think I was about six years old! She hollered, "Oh, Will--ee," and she rubbed her stomach and slushed apple sauce all over her face, and she kept hollering, "Will--ee!" with her mouth full. "Will--ee, look! Good! Bread-and-b.u.t.ter and apple sauce and sugar! I bet you wish YOU had some, Will--ee!""
"You did eat some, the other day," said Jane. "You ate a whole lot. You eat it every chance you get!"
"You hush up!" he shouted, and returned to his description of the outrage. "She kept FOLLOWING us! She followed us, hollering, "WILL--EE!"
till it"s a wonder we didn"t go deaf! And just look at her! I don"t see how you can stand it to have her going around like that and people knowing it"s your child! Why, she hasn"t got enough ON!"
Mrs. Baxter laughed. "Oh, for this very hot weather, I really don"t think people notice or care much about--"
""Notice"!" he wailed. "I guess Miss PRATT noticed! Hot weather"s no excuse for--for outright obesity!" (As Jane was thin, it is probable that William had mistaken the meaning of this word.) "Why, half o" what she HAS got on has come unfastened--especially that frightful thing hanging around her leg--and look at her back, I just beg you! I ask you to look at her back. You can see her spinal cord!"
"Column," Mrs. Baxter corrected. "Spinal column, Willie."
"What do _I_ care which it is?" he fumed. "People aren"t supposed to go around with it EXPOSED, whichever it is! And with apple sauce on their ears!"
"There is not!" Jane protested, and at the moment when she spoke she was right. Naturally, however, she lifted her hands to the accused ears, and the unfortunate result was to justify William"s statement.
"LOOK!" he cried. "I just ask you to look! Think of it: that"s the sight I have to meet when I"m out walking with Miss PRATT! She asked me who it was, and I wish you"d seen her face. She wanted to know who "that curious child" was, and I"m glad you didn"t hear the way she said it.
"Who IS that curious child?" she said, and I had to tell her it was my sister. I had to tell Miss PRATT it was my only SISTER!"
"Willie, who is Miss Pratt?" asked Mrs. Baxter, mildly. "I don"t think I"ve ever heard of--"
Jane had returned to an admirable imperturbability, but she chose this moment to interrupt her mother, and her own eating, with remarks delivered in a tone void of emphasis or expression.
"Willie"s mashed on her," she said, casually. "And she wears false side-curls. One almost came off."
At this unspeakable desecration William"s face was that of a high priest stricken at the altar.
"She"s visitin" Miss May Parcher," added the deadly Jane. "But the Parchers are awful tired of her. They wish she"d go home, but they don"t like to tell her so."
One after another these insults from the canaille fell upon the ears of William. That slanders so atrocious could soil the universal air seemed unthinkable.
He became icily calm.
"NOW if you don"t punish her," he said, deliberately, "it"s because you have lost your sense of duty!"
Having uttered these terrible words, he turned upon his heel and marched toward the house. His mother called after him:
"Wait, Willie. Jane doesn"t mean to hurt your feelings--"
"My feelings!" he cried, the iciness of his demeanor giving way under the strain of emotion. "You stand there and allow her to speak as she did of one of the--one of the--" For a moment William appeared to be at a loss, and the fact is that it always has been a difficult matter to describe THE bright, ineffable divinity of the world to one"s mother, especially in the presence of an inimical third party of tender years.
"One of the--" he said; "one of the--the n.o.blest--one of the n.o.blest--"
Again he paused.
"Oh, Jane didn"t mean anything," said Mrs. Baxter. "And if you think Miss Pratt is so nice, I"ll ask May Parcher to bring her to tea with us some day. If it"s too hot, we"ll have iced tea, and you can ask Johnnie Watson, if you like. Don"t get so upset about things, Willie!"
""Upset"!" he echoed, appealing to heaven against this word. ""Upset"!"
And he entered the house in a manner most dramatic.
"What made you say that?" Mrs. Baxter asked, turning curiously to Jane when William had disappeared. "Where did you hear any such things?"
"I was there," Jane replied, gently eating on and on. William could come and William could go, but Jane"s alimentary ca.n.a.l went on forever.
"You were where, Jane?"
"At the Parchers"."
"Oh, I see."
"Yesterday afternoon," said Jane, "when Miss Parcher had the Sunday-school cla.s.s for lemonade and cookies."
"Did you hear Miss Parcher say--"
"No"m," said Jane. "I ate too many cookies, I guess, maybe. Anyways, Miss Parcher said I better lay down--"