Otherwise Phyllis Part 9

"Story?"

"Absurd! Everybody in this town is writing a novel. Every time I go into the post-office I see scared-looking people getting their ma.n.u.scripts weighed, and nervously looking round for fear of being caught. Nan says it's a kind of literary measles people have in Indiana. Aunt Josephine's cook writes poetry--burnt up a pan of biscuits the other day when she was trying to find a rhyme for 'Isaiah.'"

"I wondered what caused me so much pain the last time I ate supper at Josie's. I must have swallowed a sonnet. What's your line, Phil?"

"Zoology."

"Possible?"

"It was this way, Amy. You know that piece I read at the high-school commencement--'The Dogs of Main Street'?"

"I do, Phil, I do; I nearly laughed myself to death."

"Well, it did seem to tickle the folks. I was about to kindle the fire with it one day when I happened to think that if it would make a high-school commencement laugh it ought to raise a laugh out of 'most anybody. So I touched it up and put in a few new dogs I've got the boys in Landers's livery-stable taking care of, and sent it to three magazines. The first two regretted, but the third fell for it. They want pictures of the dogs, though, and will give me twenty more round iron dollars for a full set, so if you see me on the hike with the camera in the morning, don't ring up the town marshal."

"Well, well," said Amzi; "it sounds like easy money. Going to keep it up?"

"I have said nothing," replied Phil, holding up her cardcase and swinging it by its short chain. "Just credit me with the fifty and I'll bring in my book the next time I find it."

In front of the theater she ran into her Uncle Lawrence, gloomily posed before the entrance with his astrakhan collar drawn up about his ears.

He had once seen Richard Mansfield in just such a coat and had been moved to imitation.

"Divinity!" breathed Hastings tragically, noting Phil's glowing cheeks and satisfying raiment.

"Forget it!" said Phil. "How about a box for the Sat.u.r.day matinee? I think I'll pull off a party for a bunch of girls at your expense. What is that on the boards? You don't mean that 'Her Long Road Home'

threatens this town again? Why rub it in, Lawr_i_nce?"

"They've canceled," said Hastings with a sigh. "That booking-office is a den of thieves. No honor, no feeling, no ideals of art!"

His tones were unusually abysmal. He stood with his back to the door of his theater as though shielding it from Philistine a.s.saults upon the drama's divine temple.

"By the way, Lawr_i_nce--" Her Aunt Kate had rebuked her at least a thousand times for calling him "Lawr_i_nce." He had asked her to call him "Uncle Larry," which was her main reason for not doing so. Her standard of uncles was high. She had never admitted her aunts' husbands to a share in a relationship that was enn.o.bled by Amzi Montgomery.

Fosd.i.c.k was usually "Paul" to Phil; Waterman she always called "Judge,"

which he hated. "Lawr_i_nce, what became of that play you wrote yourself and put on in Chicago? Why don't you bring it here and give the town a treat?"

Hastings bent upon her the grieved look of a man who suffers mutely the most unkindest cut of all. _Et tu, Brute!_ was in his reproachful glance.

"I didn't think this of you, Phil. Of course you knew the piece closed Sat.u.r.day night at Peoria."

She had not known. Her aunt had spoken largely of the venture. The theatrical powers of New York having frowned upon Hastings's play, he had produced it himself, sending it forth from Chicago to enlighten the West before carrying it to Broadway, there to put to rout and confusion the lords of the drama who had rejected it. Five thousand dollars had been spent and the play had failed dismally. Nor was this the first of Hastings's misadventures of the same sort. Phil a.n.a.lyzed her uncle's gloom and decided that it was sincere, and she was sorry for him as was her way in the presence of affliction. Hastings was an absurd person, intent upon shining in a sphere to which the G.o.ds had summoned him only in mockery. Phil lingered to mitigate his grief as far as possible.

"I'm sorry; but I suppose if a play won't go, it won't."

"A play of merit won't! My aim was to advance the ideal of American drama; that was all. The same money put into musical comedy would have nailed S. R. O. on the door all winter."

"Lawr_i_nce," said Phil, glancing up at the facade of The Hastings, "I'll tell you how you can make a barrel of money out of this brick building."

He looked at her guardedly. Phil was a digger of pits, as he knew by experience, and he was in no humor for trifling. His own balance at the bank was negligible, and his wife had warned him that no more money would be forthcoming for the encouragement of the American drama.

"Lawr_i_nce, what you ought to do is to hire that blind piano-pounder who thumps for the fraternity dances, put a neat red-haired girl in a box on the sidewalk, get one of the football team who's working his way through college to turn the crank, and put on a fil-lum."

This was, indeed, rubbing salt in his wounds. He flinched at the thought.

"Turn my house over to the 'movies'! Phil, I didn't think this of you.

After all I've tried to do to lift this dingy village to a realizing sense of what drama is--what it should mean--"

"Trim it, Hector. You can break all the banks in town uplifting the drama and never put it over. About once a winter you have a good piece; the rest of the time the folks who want to see real actors go to Indianapolis or sneak up to Chicago for a week and beat you to it. That fil-lum show down by the court-house is rotten. Coa.r.s.e and stupid. Why not spend a few dollars changing the front of this joint and put on good pictures? The people who keep the pictures moving in Indianapolis sit around the fire Sunday evenings and burn money--it comes in so fast the banks haven't room for it. Call this 'The Home Fireside'--no nickelodeon business--and get the Center Church quartette to sing. It will sound just like prayer-meeting to people who think a real theater a sinful place. If you don't tackle it, I'll throw Bernstein out and take it up myself. There's a new man in town right now trying to locate a screen; beat him to the wire, Lawr_i_nce."

"By Jove, Phil--!"

She started off briskly and a little farther on met Jack Whittlesey the sheriff, who grinned and touched his c.o.o.nskin cap.

"Got an engagement, Phil? Hope not. Uncle Alec is goin' to holler in a few minutes."

"I'm out calling, Sheriff, but if you're sure the judge is going to act up, I'll take a look in."

She crossed the street to the court-house. To Phil nothing was funnier than Alec Waterman in the throes of oratory. Waterman was big and burly, with a thunderous voice; and when he addressed a jury he roared and shook his iron-gray mane in a manner truly terrifying. In warm weather when the windows were open, he could be plainly heard in any part of the court-house square. When Phil reached the circuit court-room Judge Walters, with his feet on the judicial desk, was gazing at the ceiling, as was his habit when trials grew tedious. As Phil entered, he jerked down his feet, sat erect, snapped his fingers at the bailiff, and directed the placing of a chair within the s.p.a.ce set apart for the bar.

Phil smiled her thanks, and made herself comfortable with her back to the clerk's desk. The case in progress was a suit for personal injuries against the Sycamore Traction Company, brought by Waterman for a farmer, who, on the preceding Fourth of July, had been tossed a considerable distance toward Chicago by a violent contact with one of the defendant's cars. The motorman and the conductor had both testified that the car was running empty and that the proper signals had been given at the required crossings.

The judge left the bench and lounged about the clerk's desk, hoping to catch Phil's eye and draw her aside for one of the parleys in which he delighted; but Phil had immediately become absorbed in the testimony.

Waterman's voice rose louder and louder as he sought to befuddle the motorman as to the time of the accident, the place where the collision occurred and the signaling, but without avail. The attorney for the company looked on with an amused smile of unconcern. Both the motorman and the conductor had been carefully rehea.r.s.ed in their testimony and there was little likelihood that plaintiff's counsel would be able to trap them. Waterman was going back and forth over the time of day, attempting to show that the car was behind its schedule, and exceeding the speed limit, but the man clung to his story stubbornly. It was at exactly five minutes past three; he was running slowly, and had whistled at all the earlier stops; and when he saw the plaintiff driving upon the right of way ahead of him he put on the brakes as quickly as possible.

Phil moved to a chair just behind Waterman. He was so deeply engrossed that he did not notice her. He was making no headway, and was about to drop the witness when Phil bent over and whispered. Without turning round he rose and renewed the attack.

"I will ask you, sir, to state to this jury whether it is not a fact that the brake of your car was out of order and whether it had not given you trouble before you struck the plaintiff?"

The witness stammered and glanced at counsel for the defendant, who rose and objected to the question as not proper cross-examination. The judge returned to the bench with renewed interest and overruled the objection.

The witness admitted that there had been some slight trouble with the brake, and Waterman roared another question that drowned the explanation.

"Isn't it a fact that you ran past Stop 7 just south of the scene of this collision, and did not stop your car because it was out of control by reason of a crippled brake?"

The witness was plainly disturbed, and the defendant's counsel was unable to protect him. He admitted that the brake might not have been in perfect order, but it was an old car--

"It was an old car," boomed Waterman, "and the brake was worn out and you couldn't have stopped at that crossing even if you had wanted to!

Isn't that the fact?"

The motorman telegraphed appealingly to the company's lawyer. The judge ordered him to answer the question.

"There were no pa.s.sengers on the car," the man, now thoroughly confused, murmured inconsequently.

Waterman bent his head and took another cue from Phil, then strode majestically toward the witness.

"There were no pa.s.sengers on your car? Why not?" he thundered.

"Why not what?" faltered the witness.

"I ask you, sir, if it isn't true that there was a pa.s.senger waiting at Stop 7 and that you ran by that crossing because your brake wouldn't work?"

The witness looked at Phil and involved himself in difficulty by admitting that the car's speed was such that he was unable to see clearly whether any pa.s.senger was waiting at Stop 7. After sparring between counsel, Phil was placed upon the stand and sworn to tell the whole truth. Main Street had heard that something unusual was happening in the circuit court and the room filled.