It, and Other Stories Part 12

Ever see a kitten enjoying a fit? That was what happened to him. Then I ran about, beating and poking and shouting and burning. It was like Ulysses cleaning the house of suitors and handmaids. All the beasts ran; and some of 'em ran a long way, I guess, and climbed trees.

I stuck the torch point-end in the ground, stepped into the trap, and lifted my family out. All the time I prayed aloud, saying: "Lord on high, keep Right Bower from touching his blamed foot against any of these triggers and dropping the forest on top of all he holds in his arms!" Ivy, she rubbed her cheek against mine to show confidence--and then we were safe out and I picked up the torch and carried the whole kit and boodle, family, torch, happiness--much too big to tote--and belief in G.o.d's goodness, watchfulness, and mercy, home to our cave.

Right Bower added some uneventful details of the few days following--the ship's boat that put into the island for water and took them off, and so on. Then he asked me if I'd like to meet Mrs. Bower, and I went forward with him and was presented.

She was deep in a steamer-chair, half covered with a somewhat gay a.s.sortment of steamer-rugs. I had noticed her before, in pa.s.sing, and had mistaken her for a child.

Bower beamed over us for a while and then left us and we talked for hours--about Bower, the children, and the home in East Orange to which they were returning after a holiday at Aix; but she wouldn't talk much about the island. "Right," she said, "was all the time so venturesome that from morning till night I died of worry and anxiety. Right says the Lord does just the right thing for the right people at the right time--always. That's his creed.... Sometimes," she said, "I wonder what's become of big Bahut. He was such a--white elephant!"

Mrs. Gordon-Colfax took me to task for spending so much of the afternoon with Mrs. Bower.

"Who," said she, "was that common little person you were flirting with?--and why?"

"She's a Mrs. Bower," I said. "She has a mission."

"I could tell that," said Mrs. Gordon-Colfax, "from the way she turned up her eyes at you."

"As long as she doesn't turn up her nose at me--" I began; but Mrs.

Gordon-Colfax put in:

"The Lord did that for her."

"And," I said, "so she was saying. She said the Lord does just the right thing for the right person at the right time.... Now, your nose is beautifully Greek; but, to be honest, it turns up ever so much more than hers does."

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Gordon-Colfax, "I hate common people--and I can't help it. Let's have a bite in the grill."

"Sorry," I said; "I'm dining with the Bowers."

"You have a strong stomach," said she.

"I have," I said, "but a weak heart--and they are going to strengthen it for me."

And there arose thenceforth a coolness between Mrs. Gordon-Colfax and me, which proves once more that the Lord does just the right thing for the right people at the right time.

SAPPHIRA

Mr. Hemingway had transacted a great deal of business with Miss Tennant's father; otherwise he must have shunned the proposition upon which she came to him. Indeed, wrinkling his bushy brows, he as much as told her that he was a banker and not a p.a.w.nbroker.

Outside, the main street of Aiken, broad enough to have made five New England streets, lay red and glaring in the sun. The least restless shifting of feet by horses and mules tied to hitching-posts raised clouds of dust, immense reddish ghosts that could not be laid. In the bank itself, ordinarily a cool retreat, smelling faintly of tobacco juice deposited by some of its clients, the mercury was swelling toward ninety. It was April Fools' day, and unless Miss Tennant was cool, n.o.body was. She looked cool. If the temperature had been 40 below zero she would have looked warm; but she would have been dressed differently.

It was her great gift always to look the weather and the occasion; no matter how or what she really felt. On the present occasion she wore a very simple, inexpensive muslin, flowered with faint mauve lilacs, and a wide, floppy straw-hat trimmed with the same. She had driven into town, half a mile or more, without getting a speck of dust upon herself. Even the corners of her eyes were like those of a newly laundered baby. She smelled of tooth-powder (precipitated chalk and orris root), as was her custom, and she wore no ring or ornament of any value. Indeed, such jewels as she possessed, a graceful diamond necklace, a pearl collar, a pearl pendant, and two cabochon sapphire rings, lay on the table between her and Mr. Hemingway.

"I'm not asking the bank to do this for me," she said, and she looked extra lovely (on purpose, of course). "I'm asking you----"

Mr. Hemingway poked the cl.u.s.ter of jewels very gingerly with his forefinger as if they were a lizard.

"And, of course," she said, "they are worth twice the money; maybe three or four times."

"Perhaps," said Mr. Hemingway, "you will take offence if I suggest that your father----"

The muslin over her shoulders tightened the least in the world. She had shrugged them.

"Of course," she said, "papa would do it; but he would insist on reasons. My reasons involve another, Mr. Hemingway, and so it would not be honorable for me to give them."

"And yet," said the banker, twinkling, "your reasons would tempt me to accommodate you with the loan you ask for far more than your collateral."

"Oh," she said, "you are a business man. I could give you reasons, and be sure they would go no further--even if you thought them funny. But if papa heard them, and thought them funny, as he would, he would play the sieve. I don't want this money for myself, Mr. Hemingway."

"They never do," said he.

She laughed.

"I wish to lend it in turn," she said, "to a person who has been reckless, and who is in trouble, but in whom I believe.... But perhaps,"

she went on, "the person, who is very proud, will take offence at my offer of help.... In which case, Mr. Hemingway, I should return you the money to-morrow."

"This person--" he began, twinkling.

"Oh," she said, "I couldn't bear to be teased. The person is a young gentleman. Any interest that I take in him is a business interest, pure and simple. I believe that, tided over his present difficulties, he will steady down and become a credit to his s.e.x. Can I say more than that?"

She smiled drolly.

"Men who are a credit to their s.e.x," said Mr. Hemingway, "are not rare, but young gentlemen----"

"This one," said she, "has in him the makings of a man. Just now he is discouraged."

"Is he taking anything for it?" asked Mr. Hemingway with some sarcasm.

"Buckets," said Miss Tennant simply.

"Was it cards?" he asked.

"Cards, and betting--and the hopeless optimism of youth," said she.

"And you wish to lend him five thousand dollars, and your interest in him is platonic?"

"Nothing so ardent," said she demurely. "I wish him to pay his debts, to give me his word that he will neither drink nor gamble until he has paid back the debt to me, and I shall suggest that he go out to one of those big Western States and become a man."

"If anybody," said Mr. Hemingway with gallantry, "could lead a young gentleman to so sweeping a reform, it would be yourself."

"There is no sequence of generations," said Miss Tennant, "long enough to eradicate a drop of Irish blood."

Mr. Hemingway swept the jewels together and wrapped them in the tissue-paper in which she had brought them.

"Are you going to put them in your safe--or return them to me?" she asked plaintively.