""Oh, very well, I won"t then," says Alonzo. "I guess I can be a gentleman when necessary. But all joking aside, I want to ask him this: Does he consider poetry to be an accomplishment or a vice?"
""I was going to put something like that to him myself, only I couldn"t think of it," says Doc Martingale, edging up and looking quite restrained and nervous in the arms. I was afraid of the doc. I was afraid he was going to blemish Wilfred a couple of times right there.
""An accomplishment or a vice? Answer yes or no!" orders the judge in a hard voice.
"The poet looks round at "em and attempts to laugh merrily, but he only does it from the teeth out.
""Laugh on, my proud beauty!" says Ben b.u.t.ton. Then he turns to the bunch. "What we really ought to do," he says, "we ought to make a believer of him right here and now."
"Even then, mind you, the husbands would have lost their nerve if Ben hadn"t took the lead. Ben didn"t have to live with their wives so what cared he? Wilfred Lennox sort of shuffled his feet and smiled a smile of pure anxiety. He knew some way that this was nothing to cheer about.
""I got it," says Jeff Tuttle with the air of a thinker. "We"re cramping the poor cuss here. What he wants is the open road."
""What he really wants," says Alonzo, "is about six bottles of my pure, sparkling beer, but maybe he"ll take the open road if we show him a good one."
""He wants the open road--show him a good one!" yells the other husbands in chorus. It was kind of like a song.
""I had meant to be on my way," says Wilfred very cold and lofty.
""You"re here to-day and there to-morrow," says Ben; "but how can you be there to-morrow if you don"t start from here now?--for the way is long and lonely."
""I was about to start," says Wilfred, getting in a couple of steps toward the door.
"""Tis better so," says Ben. "This is no place for a county recorder"s son, and there"s a bully road out here open at both ends."
"They made way for the poet, and a sickening silence reigned. Even the women gathered about the door of the other room was silent. They knew the thing had got out of their hands. The men closed in after Wilfred as he reached the steps. He there took his soft hat out from under his coat where he"d cached it. He went cautiously down the steps. Beryl Mae broke the silence.
""Oh, Mr. Price," says she, catching Alonzo by the sleeve, "do you think he"s really sincere?"
""He is at this moment," says Alonzo. "He"s behaving as sincerely as ever I saw a man behave." And just then at the foot of the steps Wilfred made a tactical error. He started to run. The husbands and Ben Sutton gave the long yell and went in pursuit. Wilfred would have left them all if he hadn"t run into the tennis net. He come down like a sack of meal.
""There!" says Ben Sutton. "Now he"s done it--broke his neck or something. That"s the way with some men--they"ll try anything to get a laugh."
"They went and picked the poet up. He was all right, only dazed.
""But that"s one of the roads that ain"t open," says Ben. "And besides, you was going right toward the nasty old railroad that runs into the cramped haunts of men. You must have got turned round. Here"--he pointed out over the golf links--"it"s off that way that Mother Nature awaits her wayward child. Miles and miles of her--all open. Doesn"t your gypsy soul hear the call? This way for the hills and glens, thou star-eyed woodling!" and he gently led Wilfred off over the links, the rest of the men trailing after and making some word racket, believe me. They was all good conversationalists at the moment. Doc Martingale was wanting the poet to run into the tennis net again, just for fun, and Jeff Tuttle says make him climb a tree like the monkeys do in their native glades, but Ben says just keep him away from the railroad, that"s all. Good Mother Nature will attend to the rest.
"The wives by now was huddled round the side of the clubhouse, too scared to talk much, just muttering incoherently and wringing their hands, and Beryl Mae pipes up and says: "Oh, perhaps I wronged him after all; perhaps deep down in his heart he was sincere."
"The moon had come up now and we could see the mob with its victim starting off toward the Canadian Rockies. Then all at once they began to run, and I knew Wilfred had made another dash for liberty. Pretty soon they scattered out and seemed to be beating up the shrubbery down by the creek. And after a bit some of "em straggled back. They paid no attention to us ladies, but made for the grillroom.
""We lost him in that brush beyond the fifth hole," says Alonzo. "None of us is any match for him on level ground, but we got some good trackers and we"re guarding the line to keep him headed off from the railroad and into his beloved hills."
""We should hurry back with refreshment for the faithful watchers," says Judge Ballard. "The fellow will surely try to double back to the railroad."
""Got to keep him away from the cramped haunts of business men," says Alonzo brightly.
""I wish Clay, my faithful old hound, were still alive," says the judge wistfully.
""Say, I got a peach of a terrier down to the house right now," says Jeff Tuttle, "but he"s only trained for bear--I never tried him on poets."
""He might tree him at that," says Doc Martingale.
""Percy," cries his wife, "have you forgotten your manhood?"
""Yes," says Percy.
""Darling," calls Henrietta, "will you listen to reason a moment?"
""No," says Alonzo.
""It"s that creature from Alaska leading them on," says Mrs. Judge Ballard--"that overdressed drunken rowdy!"
"Ben Sutton looked right hurt at this. He b.u.t.toned his coat over his checked vest and says: "I take that unkindly, madam--calling me overdressed. I selected this suiting with great care. It ain"t nice to call me overdressed. I feel it deeply."
"But they was off again before one thing could lead to another, taking bottles of hard liquor they had uncorked. "The open road! The open road!" they yelled as they went.
"Well, that"s about all. Some of the wives begun to straggle off home, mostly in tears, and some hung round till later. I was one of these, not wishing to miss anything of an absorbing character. Edgar Tomlinson went early, too. Edgar writes "The Lounger in the Lobby" column for the _Recorder_, and he"d come out to report the entertainment; but at one o"clock he said it was a case for the sporting editor and he"d try to get him out before the kill.
"At different times one or two of the hunters would straggle back for more drink. They said the quarry was making a long detour round their left flank, trying his darndest to get to the railroad, but they had hopes. And they scattered out. Ever and anon you would hear the long howl of some lone drunkard that had got lost from the pack.
"About sunup they all found themselves at the railroad track about a mile beyond the clubhouse, just at the head of Stender"s grade. There they was voting to picket the track for a mile each way when along come the four-thirty-two way freight. It had slowed up some making the grade, and while they watched it what should dart out from a bunch of scrub oak but the active figure of Wilfred Lennox. He made one of them iron ladders all right and was on top of a car when the train come by, but none of "em dast jump it because it had picked up speed again.
"They said Wilfred stood up and shook both fists at "em and called "em every name he could lay his tongue to--using language so coa.r.s.e you"d never think it could have come from a poet"s lips. They could see his handsome face working violently long after they couldn"t hear him. Just my luck! I"m always missing something.
"So they come grouching back to the clubhouse and I took "em home to breakfast. When we got down to the table old Judge Ballard says: "What might have been an evening of rare enjoyment was converted into a detestable failure by that cur. I saw from the very beginning that he was determined to spoil our fun."
""The joke is sure on us," says Ben Sutton, "but I bear him no grudge.
In fact, I did him an injustice I knew he wasn"t a poet, but I didn"t believe he was even a hobo till he jumped that freight."
"Alonzo was out in the hall telephoning Henrietta. We could hear his cheerful voice: "No, Pettikins, no! It doesn"t ache a bit. What"s that?
Of course I still do! You are the only woman that ever meant anything to me. What? What"s that? Oh, I may have errant fancies now and again, like the best of men--you know yourself how sensitive I am to a certain type of flowerlike beauty--but it never touches my deeper nature. Yes, certainly, I shall be right up the very minute good old Ben leaves--to-morrow or next day. What"s that? Now, now! Don"t do that!
Just the minute he leaves--G"--by."
"And the little brute hung up on her!"
II
MA PETTENGILL AND THE SONG OF SONGS
The hammock between the two jack pines at the back of the Arrowhead ranch house had lured me to mid--afternoon slumber. The day was hot and the morning had been toilsome--four miles of trout stream, rocky, difficult miles. And my hostess, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill, had ridden off after luncheon to some remote fastness of her domain, leaving me and the place somnolent.
In the shadowed coolness, aching gratefully in many joints, I had plunged into the hammock"s Lethe, swooning shamelessly to a benign oblivion. Dreamless it must long have been, for the shadows of ranch house, stable, hay barn, corral, and bunk house were long to the east when next I observed them. But I fought to this wakefulness through one of those dreams of a monstrous futility that sometimes madden us from sleep. Through a fearsome gorge a stream wound and in it I hunted one certain giant trout. Savagely it took the fly, but always the line broke when I struck; rather, it dissolved; there would be no resistance. And the giant fish mocked me each time, jeered and flouted me, came brazenly to the surface and derided me with antics weirdly human.
Then, as I persisted, it surprisingly became a musical trout. It whistled, it played a guitar, it sang. How pathetic our mildly amazed acceptance of these miracles in dreams! I was only the more determined to snare a fish that could whistle and sing simultaneously, and accompany itself on a stringed instrument, and was six feet in length.