"Oh, he"s a splendid guide! He declares that there are just as interesting things to see here in Clarkson as there are in Rome or Venice. He told Miss Warren this afternoon that it would take him a month to show her half the sights."
"He certainly makes things interesting. His local history is delightful."
"Yes; father tells him that he knows nearly everything, but that the pity is it isn"t all true. You see, Warry and I have known each other always. The Raridans lived very near us, just over the way."
"He has shown me the place; it"s on the clay sugar loaf across the street."
"Isn"t it shameful of him not to bring his ancestral home down to the street level?"
"Oh, he says he"d rather burn the money. It seems that he fought the a.s.sessment as long as he could and has refused to abide by it. He enjoys fighting it in the courts. It gives him something to do."
"That"s like Warry. He can be more steadfast in error than anybody."
Raridan was exchanging chaff with Miss Marshall across the table and Wheaton was stranded for the moment.
"You must tell us about that Chinaman at your bachelors" house, Mr.
Wheaton. Mr. Raridan has told me many funny stories about him, but I think he makes up most of them."
"I"d hardly dare repudiate any of Mr. Raridan"s stories; but I"ll say that we couldn"t get on without the Chinaman. He"s a very faithful fellow."
"But Mr. Raridan says he isn"t!" exclaimed Evelyn. "He says that you bachelors suffer terribly from his mistakes, and that he can"t keep any rice for use at weddings because the Oriental takes it out of his pockets and makes puddings of it."
"That must be one of Mr. Raridan"s jokes," said Wheaton. "We have had no rice pudding since I went to live at The Bachelors"." Wheaton was suspicious of Raridan"s jokes. He was not always sure that he caught the point of them. He saw that Saxton, who sat opposite him, got on very well with Miss Porter, and he was surprised at this; he had thought Saxton very slow, and yet he seemed to be as much at his ease as Raridan, who was Wheaton"s ideal master of social accomplishment. He was somewhat dismayed by the array of silver beside his plate, and he found himself covertly taking his cue from Saxton, who seemed to make his choice without difficulty. It dawned on him presently that the forks and spoons were arranged in order; that it was not necessary to exercise any judgment of selection, and he felt elated to see how easily it was managed. In his relief he engaged Miss Marshall in a talk about Richmond. He knew the names of banks and bankers there, from having looked them up in the bank directories in the course of business. He liked the Southern girl"s vivacity, though he thought Evelyn much handsomer and more dignified. She asked him whether he played golf, which had just been introduced into Clarkson, and he was forced to admit that he did not; and he ventured to add that he had heard it called an old man"s game. When she replied that she shouldn"t imagine then that it would interest him particularly, he felt foolish and could not think of anything to say in reply. Raridan again claimed Miss Marshall"s attention, and Wheaton was drawn into talk with Evelyn and Saxton.
"Mr. Saxton has never seen one of our carnivals," she said, "and neither have I. You know I"ve missed them by being away so much."
"They expect to have a great entertainment this year," said Wheaton. He was sorry for the secrecy with which the names of the princ.i.p.al partic.i.p.ants were guarded; he would have liked to say something to Miss Porter about it, but he did not dare, with Saxton listening. Moreover, he was not sure that she had consented to take part.
"I suppose it"s a good deal like amateur theatricals, only on a larger scale," suggested Saxton.
"That"s not taking the carnival in the right spirit," said Evelyn. "The word amateur is jarring, I think. We must try to imagine that King Midas really and truly comes floating down the Missouri River on a barge, supported by his men of magic, and that they are met by a delegation of the wise men of Clarkson, all properly clad, and escorted to the local parthenon, or whatever it is called, where the keys of the city are given to him. I"m sure it"s all very plausible."
"But I don"t see," said Saxton, "why all the western towns that go in for these carnivals have to go back to mythology and medieval customs.
Why don"t they use something indigenous,--the Indians for instance?"
"They"re too recent," Evelyn answered. "The people around here--a good many of them, at least--were here before the savages had all gone. And those whose fathers and mothers were scalped might take it as unpleasantly suggestive if a lot of white men, dressed up as Indians, paraded themselves through the streets."
"What was that about Indians?" demanded Mr. Porter, who had been busy exchanging reminiscences with Mrs. Whipple. "Why, there hasn"t been an Indian on the place for twenty years!"
"Oh yes, there has, father," said Evelyn. "It was only five years ago that there were two in this room. Don"t you remember, when Warry had his hobby for educating Indian youth? He brought those boys up here for Christmas dinner."
"I remember; and they didn"t like turkey," added Mr. Porter. "They were hungry for their native bear meat."
"It"s too bad," said Raridan sorrowfully, "that a man never can live down his good deeds."
Raridan liked to pretend that Clarkson society had a deep philosophy which he alone understood. He had fallen into his favorite role as a social sage for the benefit of the strangers, and Mrs. Whipple was correcting or denying what he said. He had a.s.sured the table that the supreme social test was whether people could walk on their own hardwood floors and rugs without taking the long slide into eternity. Philistines could buy hardwood floors, but only the elect could walk on them.
"Society in Clarkson is easily cla.s.sified," said Raridan readily, as though he had often given thought to this subject. "There are three cla.s.ses of homes in this town, namely, those in which no servants are kept, those in which two are kept, and those in which the maids wear caps."
"Warry is going from bad to worse," declared Mrs. Whipple. "I"m sure he could give in advance the menu of any dinner he"s asked to."
"A tax on the memory and not on the imagination," retorted Warry.
Miss Warren was asking Mr. Porter"s opinion of local political conditions which were just then attracting wide-spread attention. Mr.
Porter was expressing his distrust of a leader who had leaped into fame by a violent arraignment of the rich.
"It wouldn"t be so terribly hard for us all to get rich," said Warry. "I sometimes marvel at the squalor about us. All that a man need do is to concentrate his attention on one thing, and if he is capable of earning a dollar a day he can just as easily earn ten thousand a year. Why"--he continued earnestly, "I knew a fellow in Peoria, who devised a scheme for building duplicates of some of the architectural wonders of the Old World in American cities. His plan was to send out a million postal cards inviting a dollar apiece from a million people. Almost anybody can give away a dollar and not miss it."
"How did the scheme work?" asked Mr. Porter.
"It wasn"t tested," answered Warry. "The doctors in the sanitarium wouldn"t let him out long enough to mail his postal cards."
General Whipple persuaded Miss Marshall to tell a negro story, which she did delightfully, while the table listened. Southerners are, after all, the most natural talkers we have and the only ones who can talk freely of themselves without offense. Her speech was musical, and she told her story with a nice sense of its dramatic quality. At the climax, after the laughter had abated, she asked, with an air of surprise at their pleasure in her tale:
"Didn"t you all ever hear that story before?" She was guiltless of final r"s, and her drawl was delicious.
"Oh, Miss Marshall! I _knew_ you"d say it!" Raridan appealed to the others to be sure of witnesses.
"What are you all laughing at?" demanded the girl, flushing and smiling about her.
"Oh, you did it twice!"
"I _didn"t_ say it, Mr. Raridan," she said, with dignity. "I never said that after I went North to school."
"Well, Belle," said Evelyn, "I"m heartily ashamed of you. After all we did in college to break you of it, you are at it again though you"ve been only a few months away from us."
"It"s hopeless, I"m afraid," said Miss Warren. "You know, Evelyn, she said "I-alls" when she first came to college."
They had their coffee on the veranda, where the lights from within made a pleasant dusk about them. Porter"s heart was warm with the joy of Evelyn"s home-coming. She had been away from him so much that he was realizing for the first time the common experience of fathers, who find that their daughters have escaped suddenly and inexplicably from girlhood into womanhood; and yet the girl heart in her had not lost its freshness nor its thirst for pleasure. She had carried off her little company charmingly; Porter had enjoyed it himself, and he felt young again in the presence of youth.
General Whipple had attached himself to one of the couples of young people that were strolling here and there in the grounds. Porter and Mrs. Whipple held the veranda alone; both were unconsciously watching Evelyn and Saxton as they walked back and forth in front of the house, talking gaily; and Porter smiled at the eagerness and quickness of her movements. Saxton"s deliberateness contrasted oddly with the girl"s light step. Such a girl must marry a man worthy of her; there could be no question of that; and for the first time the thought of losing her rose in his heart and numbed it.
Porter"s cigar had gone out, a fact to which Mrs. Whipple called his attention.
"I"ve heard that it"s a great compliment for a man to let his cigar go out when he"s talking to a woman. But I don"t believe my chatter was responsible for it this time." She nodded toward Evelyn, as if she understood what had been in his thought.
"She"s very fine. Both handsome and sensible, and at our age we know how rare the combination is."
"I shall have to trust you to keep an eye on her. I want her to know the right people." He spoke between the flashes of the cigar he was relighting.
"Don"t worry about her. You may trust her around the world. Evelyn has already manifested an interest in my advice," she added, smiling to herself in the dark,--"and she didn"t seem much pleased with it!"
Evelyn and Saxton had met the others, who were coming up from the walks, and there was a redistribution at the house; it was too beautiful to go in, they said, and the strolling abroad continued. A great flood of moonlight poured over the grounds. A breeze stole up from the valley and made a soothing rustle in the trees. Evelyn rescued Wheaton and Miss Warren from each other; she sent Raridan away to impart, as he said, further western lore to the Yankee. She followed, with Wheaton, the arc which the others were transcribing. A feeling of elation possessed him.
The tide of good fortune was bearing him far, but memory played hide and seek with him as he walked there talking to Evelyn Porter; he was struck with the unreality of this new experience. He was afraid of blundering; of failing to meet even the trifling demands of her careless talk. He remembered once, in his train-boy days, having pressed upon a pretty girl one of Miss Braddon"s novels; and the girl"s scornful rejection of the book and of himself came back and mocked him. Raridan"s merry laugh rang out suddenly far across the lawn; he had done more with his life than Raridan would ever do with his; Raridan was a foolish fellow.
Saxton pa.s.sed them with Miss Marshall; Saxton was dull; he had failed in the cattle business. James Wheaton was not a town"s jester, and he was not a failure. Evelyn was telling him some of Belle Marshall"s pranks at school.
"She was the greatest cut-up. I suppose she"ll never change. I don"t believe we do change so much as the wiseacres pretend, do you?"
She was aware that she had talked a great deal and threw out this line to him a little desperately; he was proving even more difficult than she had imagined him. He had been thinking of his mother--forgotten these many years--who was old even when he left home. He remembered her only as the dominant figure of the steaming kitchen where she had ministered with rough kindness and severity to her uncouth brood. His sisters--what loutish, brawling girls they were, and how they fought over whatever silly finery they were able to procure for themselves! A faint flower-scent rose from the soft skirts of the tall young woman beside him. He hated himself for his memories.