From a Bench in Our Square Part 36

"A _gentleman_, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such an affront. Look again."

"Yessum. It's dat po' white trash dey call Plooie. Mainded yo' umbrella oncet."

"My umbrella-mender!" (The mere fact that the victim had once tinkered for her a decrepit parasol ent.i.tled him in her feudal mind to the high protection of the Tallafferr tradition.) "Tell them to desist at once."

Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of the advancing mob was "no place foh a n.i.g.g.ah."

With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: "You desist 'em, mist'ess."

Sally's confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even excelled by her mistress's confidence in herself.

Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrified servitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon the brink of the fountain in almost the exact spot where she had disarmed MacLachan, the tailor, drunk, songful, and suicidal, two years before.

Since that feat an almost mythologic awe had attached itself to her locally.

She waited, small and thin, hawk-eyed, imperious, and tempered like steel. The ring of tempered steel, too, was in her voice when, at the proper moment, she raised it.

"What are you doing?"

The clamor of the mob died down. The sight of Horatia (I beg her pardon humbly, Madame Tallafferr) in the path smote them with misgivings. As in Macaulay's immortal, if somewhat jingly epic, "those behind cried 'Forward' and those before cried 'Back'!" That single hale and fiery old lady held them. No more could those two hundred ruffians have defied the challenge of her contemptuous eyes than they could have advanced into the flaming doors of a furnace.

A cautious voice from the rear inquired: "Who's the dame?"

"She's a witch," conjectured some one.

"It's the d.u.c.h.ess," said another, giving her the local t.i.tle of veneration.

"It's the lady that shot the tailor," proclaimed an awe-stricken bystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as elsewhere.) Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, prescribed in a malevolent squeak:

"T'row 'er in the drink."

"Who spoke?" said Madame Tallafferr, crisp and clear.

Silence. Then the sound of objurgations as the advocate frantically resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence.

Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob's edge, followed by a glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The d.u.c.h.ess leveled a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to her, who began a series of contortions suggestive of a desire to crawl into his own pocket.

"Michael," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Yessum," said Inky Mike, whose name happens to be Moe Sapperstein.

"What are you doing to that unfortunate person?"

"J-j-just a little j-j-joke," replied the other in what was doubtless intended for a light-hearted and care-free tone.

"Let him down." Inky Mike hesitated. "At once!" snapped the d.u.c.h.ess and stamped her foot.

"Yessum," said Inky Mike meekly.

Loosing his hold on the scantling, he retreated upon the feet of those behind. They let go also. Plooie slid forward to the ground. Madame Tallafferr's bony finger (backed by the sparkle of an authoritative diamond) swept slowly around a half-circle, with very much the easy and significant motion of a machine gun and something of the effect. A subtle suggestion of limpness manifested itself in the ma.s.s before her.

Addressing them, she raised her voice not a whit. She had no need to.

"Go about your business," she said. "Rabble!" she added in precisely the tone which one might expect of a well-bred but particularly deadly snake.

The mob wilted to a purposeless and abashed crowd. The crowd disintegrated into individuals. The individuals asked themselves what they were doing there, and, finding no sufficient answer, slunk away.

Plooie was triumphantly escorted by Madame Tallafferr and Black Sally, and (less triumphantly) by my limping self, to the nearest haven, which chanced to be the Bonnie La.s.sie's house. Annie Oombrella pattered along beside him, fumbling his hand and trying not to cry.

But when the Bonnie La.s.sie saw the melancholy wreck, _she_ cried, as much from fury as from pity, and said that men were brutes and bullies and cowards and imbeciles--and why hadn't her Cyrus been at home to stop it? Whereto Madame Tallafferr complacently responded that Mr. Cyrus Staten had not been needed: the _canaille_ would always respect a proper show of authority from its superiors; and so went home, rustling and sparkling.

After all, Plooie was not much hurt. Perhaps more frightened than anything else. Panic was, in fact, the reason generally ascribed in Our Square for his quiet departure, with his Annie, of course, on the following Sunday. Only the Bonnie La.s.sie dissented. But as the Bonnie La.s.sie reasons with her heart instead of her head, we accept her theories with habitual and smiling indulgence rather than respect--until the facts bear them out. She had, it appeared, called on the Plooies to inquire as to their proposed course, and had rather more than hinted that if the head of the house wished to respond to his country's call, Our Square would look after Annie Oombrella. To this he returned only a stubborn and somber silence. The Bonnie La.s.sie said afterward that he seemed ashamed. She added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the Dominie would not think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather markedly failed to acknowledge his salute on the morning before his departure, I felt a qualm of misgiving. After all, judging your neighbor's soul is a kittle business. There is such an insufficiency of data.

So Schepstein lost a renter. The bas.e.m.e.nt cubbyhole remained vacant, with only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the window as a memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But Schepstein, wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year after, encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office far over in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which she had taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistful and haggard.

Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costs nothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie.

Where was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head.

"Left you, has he?" asked Schepstein, astonished at this evidence of iniquity.

"Yes," said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice that Schepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Her eyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely as they could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked to observe that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarily unbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes, he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest, on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.) She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head.

"Well, if you ever need a home, the bas.e.m.e.nt's vacant and there ain't a better bas.e.m.e.nt in Our Square."

Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about his business.

Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently, according to their natures, and many men went away from places that had known them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdom of Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, a bulwark between the ravager of the world and his victory until there sped across the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales.

Our Square gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness the simple memorials in Our Square.

Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits its ancient and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought to be. In their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in the year of grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada, vagrant from heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in our lilac bush, and other equally insistent sounds of reality filling the air, my ears were smitten with a voice from the realm of wraiths.

"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees," it cried on a faint and cluttering note.

"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees a raccommoder."

Over in the far corner of the park an apparition moved into my visual range. It looked like Plooie. It moved like Plooie. It was loaded like Plooie. It opened a mouth like Plooie's and emitted again the familiar though diminished falsetto shriek. No doubt of it now; it _was_ Plooie.

He had come back to us who never thought to see him again, who never wished to see him again, still unpurged of his stigma.

As he pa.s.sed me, I acknowledged his greeting, somewhat stiffly, I fear, and walked over to Schepstein's. There in the bas.e.m.e.nt, amid the familiar wreckage as of a thousand umbrellas, sat little Annie.

"Bonjour, Dominie," said she wistfully.

"Good-morning, Annie. So you are back."

"Yes, Dominie. Is there need that one wash the step at your house?"

"There is need that one explain one's self. What have you been doing these three years?"

"I work. I work hard."

"And your husband? What has he been doing?" I asked sternly.

Annie Oombrella's soft face drooped. "Soyez gentil, Dominie," she implored. "Be a kind, good man and ask him not. That make him so triste--so sad."