Miss Clegg drew a sharp breath. "They went to see "Liza Em"ly, an" they saw her. My goodness heavens, I should think they did see her. Mrs.
Macy says if any one ever supposed as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was any wonder, they"d ought to go to the city an" see "Liza Em"ly, and the Hanging Gardens would keep their mouths shut forever after."
"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop for the third time.
But Miss Clegg was now quite ready to discharge her full duty. "Seems "Liza Em"ly"s book went into the twentieth edition yesterday," she said, opening her eyes and mouth with great expressiveness. "They knew that before they got there, for you can believe Mrs. Macy or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but there were actually signboards saying so stuck up all along in the fields as the train went by. The train-boy had the books for sale on the train, too, and kept dropping "em on top of "em all the way, but they didn"t mind that, for Mrs. Fisher read her book as fast as she could until he picked it up again, and she read to good purpose, for this afternoon she asked for a gla.s.s of water, and while I was out with her in the kitchen getting it, she told me there isn"t a mite of doubt but Mrs. Macy is in the book, and Doctor Carter of Meadville is in right along with her. Mrs. Fisher says "Liza Em"ly has called her Miss Grace and him Doctor Wagner of Lemonadetown, but she says she knew "em instantly by the description of how they was in love; she says you"d recognize how they was in love right off. I must say, Mrs. Lathrop, as I think "Liza Em"ly ought to be very careful what she writes about real people if you can tell "em as quick as that; but anyway, they got to town and took a street car, and then, lo and behold, if their first little surprise wasn"t the finding as "Liza Em"ly has stopped living where she lives and gone to live in a hotel, so they had to go to the hotel, too, and when they got there, what do you think?--If "Liza Em"ly wasn"t giving a reception to celebrate the twentieth edition!"
"Wh--?" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Yes, indeed," continued Miss Clegg, "certainly--yes, I should say so, too. If they didn"t get a fine shock over "Liza Em"ly and her hotel and her reception and the whole thing, Mrs. Macy says she"ll never know what a shock is when she sees it. Seems they was shoved into one end of a elevator without so much as by your leave and out the other end before they"d caught their breath, and then they found themselves in a room with flowers all tied up in banners, and Elijah, with his hair parted in the middle, pa.s.sing cups of tea which a lady, with her m.u.f.f on her head, was pouring out, while "Liza Em"ly sat on a table swinging her feet in shoes she never bought in _this_ town, Mrs. Macy"ll take her Bible oath, and a dress that trained on the floor even from the table."
"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Oh, that isn"t anything," said Susan, "just you wait. Well, and so Mrs.
Macy says you can maybe imagine their feelings when they found their two perfectly respectable and well brought up selves in the middle of such a kind of a party! One man and one girl was under the piano playing cat"s cradle, while another man was doing a sum on the wallpaper with a hatpin. Mrs. Macy says she wouldn"t have been surprised at nothing after that, you"d think, but she says when it comes to "Liza Em"ly nowadays, you don"t know even what you"re thinkin", for you"d suppose "Liza Em"ly would at least have looked ashamed of her feet and her train. Instead of that, she just clapped her hands and said, "h.e.l.lo, home-folks," which nearly sent Mrs. Fisher over backwards. Elijah saw them then, and _he_ had the good manners to drop a teacup, but even he didn"t look anywhere near as used up as in Mrs. Macy"s opinion a man away from business with his hair parted in the middle in the middle of the afternoon had ought to look. He gave them chairs though, and they set down between a young lady as was smoking a cigarette and another as was very carefully powdering herself in a little mirror set in her pocketbook. Just then there was a noise like a awful crash and a hailstorm, and after they"d both jumped and Mrs. Macy come near dislocating her hip, they see that a man was beginning on the piano. Well, Mrs. Macy says _such_ piano-playing her one hope is as she may be going to be spared hereafter; she says he"d skitter up the piano with both hands, and then he"d bang his way back to where he belonged, and every time he hit the very bottom, he"d give his head a flop and jerk down another lot of hair over his eyes. Mrs. Macy says she never see a man with so much loose hair where he could manage it, for he kept getting down more and more till he looked like a cocoanut and nothing else, so help Mrs. Macy, and then, when he was completely hid, he hit the piano four cracks and folded his arms and was done."
"Mercy on--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"I should say so," continued Miss Clegg, "and Mrs. Macy says everybody clapped like mad, and then "Liza Em"ly come to earth and went and threw her arms around his neck, which to Mrs. Macy"s order of thinking, didn"t look much like she was going to marry Elijah. And then, before they could shake hands or say good-by or do a thing, a boy came in with a lot of telegrams on a tray, and while "Liza Em"ly was fixing half a spectacle in one eye to read "em, a young lady dressed in snakeskins, and very little else, jumped into the room right over the backs of their two chairs in a most totally unlooked-for way, and then began to spin about and wriggle here and there and in and out generally, and Mrs.
Fisher got up and said they really must go, and Elijah showed "em to the door with the lady in snakeskins making figure eights around them all three and "Liza Em"ly throwing a rose at them and kissing her hand till somehow they got into the hall. They walked down flights of stairs then till they thought there never would be a bottom anywhere, and then they looked at each other, and after a while they got where they could speak, and then they came home."
"Well, wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"Me, too," said Susan, "I think it"s _awful_! And the worst of it is for her to be the minister"s daughter. Think of it! They bought a paper as had her picture on it and a account of the reception as they"d just been at. It said Herr Schnitzel Beerstein played, so they know his name now, and Madame Kalouka S-k-z-o-h danced, so when it comes to her name, they ain"t much better off than they were before. Wherever they looked they see posters of _Deacon Tooker Talks_, and people in the cars was all discussing the book. Two ministers is going to take it for a text to-morrow, and the candy stores has all got little candy boxes like beds with a chocolate drop for Deacon Tooker and a gum-drop for his wife."
"Well, wha--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"I don"t know," said Miss Clegg. "The book"s made right out of this community, and since I"ve read it myself, I can see who every one is _except_ Deacon Tooker. I can"t see who Deacon Tooker is, for we haven"t got anybody like him. He"s talking the whole time; in fact, the book is all what he says about everything, and all his wife ever does is to wake up when he shakes her and then go to sleep again. The idea"s very remarkable of a man laying awake chattering to himself all night long, but I never heard of any such person here. Our only deacon is Deacon White, and he never talks a _tall_."
"I wonder if the min--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"No, I don"t believe so," said Miss Clegg. "My goodness, suppose he did and hit something like they did! No, I hope he won"t ever think of it, and as for "Liza Em"ly, I hope she"ll remember her married father and mother soon and remember her quiet and loving home, too, before she gets in the habit of having parties like that very often. My gracious, think of going to call on a girl as you see christened and having a snake-lady gartering her way up your leg while you were trying to say good-by and get away alive. Mrs. Macy says the creature was diving here and wriggling there and slipping under tables and over chairs in a way as made your flesh go creeping right after her. Well, it"s clear "Liza Em"ly"s started on a most singular career. Mrs. Macy says first they give her a sandwich with a bow of ribbon on it, and she swallowed the ribbon; and then they give her a piece out of a cake that they said had a lucky quarter in it, and she"s almost sure she swallowed the quarter, so maybe she was prejudiced."
"Well, I--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"They felt the same way," said Miss Clegg; "they"ve come home very much used up. Mrs. Macy says you can talk to her about the days of ancient Rome and the way folks act underground in Paris, but she says she knows positively as what she and Mrs. Fisher saw with their own eyes in "Liza Em"ly"s sitting-room beat all those kind of little circuses hollow. Mrs.
Macy says she"s seen enough of what they call high life now to last her till she dies of shame. She says the only bright spot in the whole thing is as "Liza Em"ly"s nose isn"t anywhere near as prominent as you"d think any more, and she"s got a automobile and is going to Europe when the book goes into its fiftieth edition."
"Well--I--" mused Mrs. Lathrop.
"Yes, and I will, too," said Miss Clegg. "I"ll go straight home and do it. I"m awful tired. And it bothers me more than I like to own not knowing who Deacon Tooker is. You know my nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and although I was never one to try to find out things nor to talk about "em after I"ve managed to find "em out, still I never was one to like not to know things, and I must say I do want to know who Deacon Tooker is.
Well, they say all things comes to him who waits, so I think I won"t stop here any longer. Good-by, and when I do find out, you can count on my coming right over to tell you."
"Goo--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
But Miss Clegg had shut the door after her.
V
SUSAN CLEGG"S "IMPROVEMENTS"
There was nothing small or mean or economical about Jathrop Lathrop, now that he had turned out rich. He was the soul of generosity, the epitome of liberality, the concentrated essence of filial devotion as expressed in checks and carte-blanche orders directed at his mother.
One of his earliest kind thoughts was to have Mrs. Lathrop"s home completely modernized, and as Susan Clegg lived next door and was his mother"s best and dearest friend, he decided to build her house over, too.
To that end he hunted up the highest-priced architect of whom he could hear and asked to have designs submitted forthwith. The highest-priced architect readily undertook the reconstruction of the Lathrop and Clegg domiciles, but being too occupied to go down into the country and look over the field personally, he delegated one of his youngest and most promising a.s.sistants to accomplish the task, and the young and promising a.s.sistant forthwith packed his dress-suit case and set off.
He was an a.s.sistant of most extraordinary youth and almost unbelievable promise, and he saw a chance to plan colleges (endowed by J. Lathrop, Esq.), palaces (to be built for Lathrop, the millionaire), possibly to be commissioned with the overseeing of the artistic development of some new, up-springing city (Lathropville, Alaska, or something of that sort), if he should only succeed in at once accomplishing a close union of feeling with the golden offspring of our old friend. His first really rich client is to a young debutant in bricks just what a well-hung picture is to the budding artist, or a song before royalty is to a singer. Such being the well-known facts of life the young and promising a.s.sistant fully intended to do himself proud in the reconstruction of the two houses consigned by Jathrop"s benevolence to his tender mercies.
The young architect came to town and went to the hotel (at Jathrop"s expense). He spent the next ten days in going twice each day to study his task, sketch its realities and idealities, and also make the acquaintance of Mrs. Lathrop and Susan Clegg, for he was a young man of new and novel ideas, and one of his newest and most novel ideas was to build a house which would really suit those who were to live in it. He was so young that he had no conception as to how this was to be done, nor the faintest inkling as to what a t.i.tanic-crossed-with-Promethean undertaking it would be to do, if even he did know how; but he felt--and most truly--that it was a new view of the relation between house and builder, and he felt proud over having thought it out for himself as well as for all time to come. Then he had another novel idea--not so altogether his own, however--which was that a house should "express its dweller." This latter idea was quite beyond the grasp of his present audience and just a little beyond his own grasp, too, but he was brave and conscientious and didn"t see it that way at all.
It has taken some time to lay out all these premises, but if there is any one with whom one can desire close acquaintance it is surely the man who comes to build over a comfortable and in-most-ways-satisfactory home of long years" standing, so I trust that the minutes have not been altogether wasted.
Mrs. Lathrop and Miss Clegg received the young man and his mission in such states of mind as were entirely compatible with their individual outlook over life.
"I must say I"m far from altogether liking him," Susan said to her friend, a very real note of disapproval in her voice, one day toward the end of the week. Mrs. Lathrop was rocking in her new old-gold-plush stationary rocker and listened as usual with interest. "He"s on the woodpile now, drawing a three-quarter profile of the woodshed. The way he perches anywhere and then goes to work and draws anything would surely make an English snail pull his castle right into his house along with him, for I"ve got a feeling as there"s nothing about me as he hasn"t got in his book by this time, and there"s many things he"s drawn as I never would choose to have the world in general looking over. I"m sure I don"t want no view of my woodshed going down to posterity for one thing. I"ve had to have a woodshed, but I"ve never admired it, and the way I"ve nailed anything handy over holes in it is far from my usual way of mending. You"ve always mended "hit or miss," Mrs. Lathrop, and after years of such doings as was more worthy a poorhouse than a Christian, heaven has seen fit to reward your patching with a son fresh from the Klondike, but I"ve always darned blue with blue and brown with brown, and the only spot in my whole life that I haven"t carefully and neatly matched the stripes in is my woodshed, and now to-day when I was thinking very seriously of using it up for the kitchen-stove next winter, if there isn"t a young man from New York out drawing it in black and white, and ten to one he"ll print it in some unexpected Sunday paper marked "Jathrop Lathrop"s mother"s friend Susan Clegg"s woodshed!"
That"ll be a pretty kettle of fish, and you needn"t tell me that there won"t be somebody to perk up and say, "No smoke without some fire,"
which will be as good as throwing it in my teeth that I"m one of those as use a safety pin when a b.u.t.ton"s off, when it"s a thing as I"ve never done and never would do even if there is a proverb that a pin"s a pin for all that."
Susan paused here and looked upon her friend in serious question. Mrs.
Lathrop, however, merely continued to rock pleasantly. A change had come over the spirit of her rocking since the return of Jathrop. She had rocked for years with a more or less apologetic air, as if she knew that there were those who might criticize her action and yet she couldn"t personally feel that she really ought to give it up. But now she rocked with a wide, free swing as if life was life and if she liked to rock, she was going to rock, and if there were those who objected, they could object--she didn"t care. There is nothing that so quickly develops an independent standpoint as the possession of money; there is nothing that so fully produces a conviction that one is thoroughly justified in doing just exactly what one pleases; there is nothing that leads to quite the same lofty indifference as to whether what pleases one pleases or displeases all the rest of the world.
We have but to look at Jathrop to see that this is true. Of all the tame, mild-eyed, listless young individuals, Jathrop was the worst, falling asleep on an average of three times an afternoon in school, and never keeping conscious a whole evening. Whether a sudden change in Jathrop"s character was the cause of making him a financial power or whether his Klondike-acquired bank account was the cause of his awakening, it still is a fact that now in his quiet way he was a very live person.
Jathrop was indifferent to a degree, also, as witness his appearance with his Chinese boy whom everybody took to be his wife with his great baggy trousers and pigtail that no respectable boy, Chinese or otherwise, should wear. Of course, it must be acceded that Jathrop was indifferent in that case from ignorance. He did not know what the world was saying.
Perhaps that accounts for the lofty att.i.tude, one might say lofty alt.i.tude, of so many of our millionaires. They are so far removed from the world that their ears cannot hear what is being said. People talk in whispers about the "very rich," which makes it doubly hard for them to hear, or hearing, to think that it matters very much, else people would shout. However, when all is said, money does make a difference.
Mrs. Lathrop had been a silent, sat-upon, unaggressively-rocking person for years; now Jathrop had come back from the Klondike and altered all that; it was not that she had turned talkative, it was not that she had so far altered the very foundations of her being as to presume ever to try to contradict any other body"s opinions, but the return of Jathrop and the wealth of Jathrop had found expression in his mother through the one medium of almost all expression with her. Mrs. Lathrop had ceased to concern herself as to the length or the vigor of her rocking. It was beautiful to see the energy of independence with which she went back and forth, bringing her feet down with an audible clap whenever she desired fresh impetus.
Susan Clegg did not seem to sympathize. Instead, sitting on her straight chair opposite, she shook her head severely, further discontent making itself visible in the manner of her shake.
But Mrs. Lathrop was proof against all manifestations of disapproval now. She flew back and forth in the old-gold-plush stationary rocker like the happy pendulum of some beatific clock. Jathrop was home.
Jathrop was rich. Jathrop would buy her anything she wanted.
"I d"n know, I"m sure, Mrs. Lathrop," Susan went on, the discontent ringing somewhat more distinctly in her tone, "as I"m much taken with this idea of building us over, even if Jathrop does mean it kindly. I know there"s a many as would nigh to go out of their senses at the very idea of being made over new for nothing, but I was never one to go out of my senses easy, and that young man on the woodpile doesn"t give me any kind of secure feeling as to what he"ll make out of my house. He looks to me like the kind of young man as will open doors square across windows where the k.n.o.b"ll smash the gla.s.s sure if you"re trying to carry a bureau out at the time of the house-cleaning. The kind of cravats he"s got looks to me like his chimneys would be very likely not to draw, and their color gives me a feeling that doughnuts in his house will smell in shut-up closets a week after the frying. You know what shut-up fryings is like after they"ve had no fresh air for a week, but I wasn"t raised that way. When I have fish I have fish and done with it, and when I have onions I have onions, and I ain"t very wild over maybe boarding my fish and my onions in my best bonnet henceforth and forever.
"Mrs. Brown was telling me yesterday as she heard of some city woman as had a system of ventilation put into her house, and the rats and mice used it so freely that you couldn"t sleep nights. They nested in it, and they fought in it, and they died in it, all as happy and gay as you please, and the family had to have it picked out of the walls in the end and all new paper put on. That"s the kind of ideas young men call modern improvements, and that young man on the woodpile is about as modern and improving as they make "em, I take it.
"I can"t say what it is about that young man that I don"t like, but, being as I"m always frank and open with you, I will remark that so far I ain"t found one thing about him as I _do_ like. He"s been down cellar hammering on the wall wherever the wind blew him to listeth to hammer, and I had to sit up-stairs and listen without no chance to blow myself.
I caught him down on all fours this morning peeking under my front porch, and he didn"t even have the manners to blush. As to the way he makes free with the outside of _your_ house, I wouldn"t waste breath with trying to tell you, but my own feeling is that an architect learns his trade on a tight-rope to judge from that young man"s manner, and from what I"ve seen while he was swinging by one arm from your premises, I wouldn"t feel safe to take a bath even on top of a chimney, myself."
Susan rose at this and went to the window and looked out; from her expression as she turned, it was plain to be seen that the artist was still at his task.
"I don"t know, Mrs. Lathrop," she said, coming back to her seat, "I d"n know, I"m sure, as I"m took with this idea a _tall_. I never was one for favors either given or asked, and although I know this isn"t no favor, but just a evidence of what I"ve been through with you first and last, still it"s done in spite of me and I"ve got no feeling that I"m going to enjoy it. There"s something about kindness as is always most trying to the people who"ve got no choice but to stand up and be tried. People who get freely given to is in the habit of getting what they don"t want and can"t use, but I ain"t. I"m very far from it. There"s nothing in me that"s going to be pleased with getting a green hat when I needed a pink coat--no, sir.