"Anyway, I"d rather live in Montana City than Chicago," ventured Mrs.
Bines.
"Whatever pride you may feel in your discernment, Mrs. Cadwallader, is amply justified," replied her son, performing before the amazed lady a bow that indicated the lowest depths of slavish deference.
"I am now," he continued, "going out to pace the floor of this locomotive-boudoir for a few exhilarating breaths of smoke, and pretend to myself that I"ve got to live in Chicago for ever. A little discipline like that is salutary to keep one from forgetting the great blessing which a merciful Providence has conferred upon one."
"I"ll walk a bit with you," said his sister, donning her jacket and a cap.
"Lest my remarks have seemed indeterminate, madam," sternly continued Percival at the door of the car, "permit me to add that if Chicago were heaven I should at once enter upon a life of crime. Do not affect to misunderstand me, I beg of you. I should leave no avenue of salvation open to my precious soul. I should incur no risk of being numbered among the saved. I should be _b-a-d_, and I should sit up nights to invent new ways of evil. If I had any leisure left from being as wicked as I could be, I should devote it to teaching those I loved how to become abandoned. I should doubtless issue a pamphlet, "How to Merit Perdition Without a Master. Learn to be Wicked in your Own Home in Ten Lessons. Instructions Sent Securely Sealed from Observation. Thousands of Testimonials from the Most Accomplished Reprobates of the Day." I trust Mrs. Llewellen Leffingwell-Thompson, that you will never again so far forget yourself as to utter that word "Chicago" in my presence. If you feel that you must give way to the evil impulse, go off by yourself and utter the name behind the protection of closed doors--where this innocent girl cannot hear you. Come, sister. Otherwise I may behave in a manner to be regretted in my calmer moments. Let us leave the woman alone, now. Besides, I"ve got to go out and help the hands make up that New York train. You never can tell. Some horrible accident might happen to delay us here thirty minutes. Cheer up, ma; it"s always darkest just before leaving Chicago, you know."
Thus flippantly do some of the younger sons of men blaspheme this metropolis of the mid-West--a city the creation of which is, by many persons of discrimination, held to be the chief romance and abiding miracle of the nineteenth century. Let us rejoice that one such partisan was now at hand to stem the torrent of abuse. As Percival held back the door for his sister to pa.s.s out, a stout little ruddy-faced man with trim grey sidewhiskers came quickly up the steps and barred their way with cheery aggressiveness.
"Ah! Mr. Higbee--well, well!" exclaimed Percival, cordially.
"Thought it might be some of you folks when I saw the car," said Higbee, shaking hands all around.
"And Mrs. Bines, too! and the girl, looking like a Delaware peach when the crop"s "failed." How"s everybody, and how long you going to be in the good old town?"
"Ah! we were just speaking of Chicago as you came in," said Percival, blandly. "_Isn"t_ she a great old town, though--a wonder!"
"My boy," said Higbee, in low, solemn tones that came straight from his heart, "she gets greater every day you live. You can see her at it, fairly. How long since you been here?"
"I came through last June, you know, after I left your yacht at Newport."
"Yes, yes; to be sure; so you did--poor Daniel J.--but say, you wouldn"t know the town now if you haven"t seen it since then. Why, I run over from New York every thirty days or so and she grows out of my ken every time, like a five-year-old boy. Say, I"ve got Mrs. Higbee up in the New York sleeper, but if you"re going to be here a spell we"ll stop a few days longer and I"ll drive you around--what say?--packing houses--Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive--Lincoln Park--"
He waited, glowing confidently, as one submitting irresistible temptations.
Percival beamed upon him with moist eyes.
"By Jove, Mr. Higbee! that"s clever of you--it"s royal! Sis and I would like nothing better--but you see my poor mother here is almost down with nervous prostration and we"ve got to hurry her to New York without an hour"s delay to consult a specialist. We"re afraid"--he glanced anxiously at the astounded Mrs. Bines, and lowered his voice--"we"re afraid she may not be with us long."
"Why, Percival," began Mrs. Bines, dazedly, "you was just saying--"
"Now don"t fly all to pieces, ma!--take it easy--you"re with friends, be sure of that. You needn"t beg us to go on. You know we wouldn"t think of stopping when it may mean life or death to you. You see just the way she is," he continued to the sympathetic Higbee--"we"re afraid she may collapse any moment. So we must wait for another time; but I"ll tell you what you do; go get Mrs. Higbee and your traps and come let us put you up to New York. We"ve got lots of room--run along now--and we"ll have some of that ham, "the kind you have always bought," for lunch. A.L. Jackson is a miserable cook, too, if I don"t know the truth." Gently urging Higbee through the door, he stifled a systematic inquiry into the details of Mrs. Bines"s affliction.
"Come along quick! I"ll go help you and we"ll have Mrs. Higbee back before the train starts."
"Do you know," Mrs. Bines thoughtfully observed to her daughter, "I sometimes mistrust Percival ain"t just right in his head; you remember he did have a bad fall on it when he was two years and five months old--two years, five months, and eighteen days. The way he carries on right before folks" faces! That time I went through the asylum at b.u.t.te there was a young man kept going on with the same outlandish rigmarole just like Percival. The idea of Percival telling me to eat a lemon-ice with an ice-pick, and "Oh, why don"t the flesh-brushes wear nice, proper clothes-brushes!" and be sure and hammer my nails good and hard after I get them manicured. And back home he was always wanting to know where the meat-augers were, saying he"d just bought nine hundred new ones and he"d have to order a ton more if they were all lost. I don"t believe there is such a thing as a meat-auger. I don"t know what on earth a body could do with one. And that other young man," she concluded, significantly, "they had him in a little bit of a room with an iron-barred door to it like a prison-cell."
CHAPTER XIV.
Mr. Higbee Communicates Some Valuable Information
The Higbees were presently at home in the Bines car. Mrs. Higbee was a pleasant, bustling, plump little woman, sparkling-eyed and sprightly.
Prominent in her manner was a helpless little confession of inadequacy to her ambitions that made her personality engaging. To be energetic and friendly, and deeply absorbed in people who were bold and confident, was her att.i.tude.
She began bubbling at once to Mrs. Bines and Psyche of the latest fashions for mourners. Crepe was more swagger than ever before, both as tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and for entire costumes.
"House gowns, my dear, and dinner gowns, made entirely of crepe in the Princesse style, will exactly suit your daughter--and on the dinner gowns she can wear a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of that dull jet pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie."
From gowns she went naturally to the difficulty of knowing whom to meet in a city like New York--and how to meet them--and the watchfulness required to keep daughter Millie from becoming entangled with leading theatrical gentlemen. Amid Percival"s lamentations that he must so soon leave Chicago, the train moved slowly out of the big shed to search in the interwoven puzzle of tracks for one that led to the East.
As they left the centre of the city Higbee drew Percival to one of the broad side windows.
"Pull up your chair and sit here a minute," he said, with a mysterious little air of importance. "There"s a thing this train"s going to pa.s.s right along here that I want you to look at. Maybe you"ve seen better ones, of course--and then again--"
It proved to be a sign some twenty feet high and a whole block long.
Emblazoned upon its broad surface was "Higbee"s Hams." At one end and towering another ten feet or so above the mammoth letters was a white-capped and ap.r.o.ned chef abandoning his mercurial French temperament to an utter frenzy of delight over a "Higbee"s Ham" which had apparently just been vouchsafed to him by an invisible benefactor.
"There, now!" exclaimed Higbee; "what do you call that--I want to know--hey?"
"Great! Magnificent!" cried Percival, with the automatic and ready hypocrisy of a sympathetic nature. "That certainly is great."
"Notice the size of it?" queried Higbee, when they had flitted by.
"_Did_ I!" exclaimed the young man, reproachfully.
"We went by pretty fast--you couldn"t see it well. I tell you the way they"re allowed to run trains so fast right here in this crowded city is an outrage. I"m blamed if I don"t have my lawyer take it up with the Board of Aldermen--slaughtering people on their tracks right and left--you"d think these railroad companies owned the earth--But that sign, now. Did you notice you could read every letter in the label on that ham? You wouldn"t think it was a hundred yards back from the track, would you? Why, that label by actual measure is six feet, four inches across--and yet it looks as small--and everything all in the right proportion, it"s wonderful. It"s what I call art," he concluded, in a slightly dogmatic tone.
"Of course it"s art," Percival agreed; "er--all--hand-painted, I suppose?"
"Sure! that painting alone, letters and all, cost four hundred and fifty dollars. I"ve just had it put up. I"ve been after that place for years, but it was held on a long lease by Max, the Square Tailor--you know. You probably remember the sign he had there--"Peerless Pants Worn by Chicago"s Best Dressers" with a man in his shirt sleeves looking at a new pair. Well, finally, I got a chance to buy those two back lots, and that give me the site, and there she is, all finished and up.
That"s partly what I come on this time to see about. How"d you like the wording of that sign?"
"Fine--simple and effective," replied Percival.
"That"s it--simple and effective. It goes right to the point and it don"t slop over beyond any, after it gets there. We studied a good deal over that sign. The other man, the tailor, had too many words for the board s.p.a.ce. My advertisin" man wanted it to be, first, "Higbee"s Hams, That"s All." But, I don"t know--for so big a s.p.a.ce that seemed to me kind of--well--kind of flippant and undignified. Then I got it down to "Eat Higbee"s Hams." That seemed short enough--but after studying it, I says, What"s the use of saying "eat"? No one would think, I says, that a ham is to paper the walls with or to stuff sofa-cushions with--so off comes "eat" as being superfluous, and leaving it simple and dignified--"Higbee"s Hams.""
"By the way," said Percival, when they were sitting together again, later in the day, "where is Henry, now?"
Higbee chuckled.
"That"s the other thing took me back this time--the new sign and getting Hank started. Henry is now working ten hours a day out to the packinghouse. After a year of that, he"ll be taken into the office and his hours will be cut down to eight. Eight hours a day will seem like sinful idleness to Henry by that time."
Percival whistled in amazement.
"I thought you"d be surprised. But the short of it is, Henry found himself facing work or starvation. He didn"t want to starve a little bit, and he finally concluded he"d rather work for his dad than any one else.
"You see Henry was doing the Rake"s Progress act there in New York--being a gilded youth and such like. Now being a gilded youth and "a well-known man about town" is something that wants to be done in moderation, and Henry didn"t seem to know the meaning of the word. I put up something like a hundred and eighty thousand dollars for Hank"s gilding last year. Not that I grudged him the money, but it wasn"t doing him any good. He was making a monkey of himself with it, Henry was. A good bit of that hundred and eighty went into a comic opera company that was one of the worst I ever _did_ see. Henry had no judgment. He was _too_ easy. Well, along this summer he was on the point of making a break that would--well, I says to him, says I, "Hank, I"m no penny-squeezer; I like good stretchy legs myself," I says; "I like to see them elastic so they"ll give a plenty when they"re pulled; but," I says, "if you take that step," I says, "if you declare yourself, then the rubber in your legs," I says, "will just naturally snap; you"ll find you"ve overplayed the tension," I says, "and there won"t be any more stretch left in them."
"The secret is, Hank was being chased by a whole family of wolves--that"s the gist of it--fortune-hunters--with tushes like the ravening lion in Afric"s gloomy jungle. They were not only cold, stone broke, mind you, but hyenas into the bargain--the father and the mother and the girl, too.
"They"d got their minds made up to marry the girl to a good wad of money--and they"ll do it, too, sooner or later, because she"s a corker for looks, all right--and they"d all made a dead set for Hank; so, quick as I saw how it was, I says, "Here," I says, "is where I save my son and heir from a pa.s.sel of butchers," I says, "before they have him scalded and dressed and hung up outside the shop for the holiday trade," I says, "with the red paper rosettes stuck in Henry"s chest," I says."