Round the Corner in Gay Street Part 10

Jane drew a long breath. She forgot her weeding and sat back upon the walk, pulling off her gloves. Forrest waited silently for her first comment.

"Imagine my brother Peter doing that," she murmured.

"I can't imagine it--though Peter's no soft-head. But your father's human, Jane. Mine--isn't."

"Oh, he is--he is! Don't say that! He may seem stern and hard, but that 's only on the surface, I 'm sure."

"Much you know about it!" muttered Forrest. "But, anyhow, hard or not, I 'm not going to be put into a business life I hate."

"What would you like to do?"

"Go into the army."

Jane stared at him, astonished. This idle youth live that sort of life?

Her lips curved slowly into a smile, at which Forrest promptly took umbrage.

"See here," he said, sitting up straight, "you 're not to judge me, you know, from what you 've seen of me in the two months you 've lived in Gay Street. I 've been on vacation, I admit, ever since my tutor left in March. Besides, it 's not enlisting as a private I 'm thinking of--no, no! I want to enter the army by the way of West Point, and get my lieutenant's commission at graduation. That 's a very different thing."

"Yes, that's true. It means, I believe, four years of the severest training in the world. I know a boy who went--he could n't stand it."

Forrest flushed hotly under his fair skin. "And you think I could n't.

That settles it. I 'll go, if only to prove you 're mistaken."

The girl looked up quickly, startled by his tone. "Ah, please," she began, "don't talk that way. Tell me--will your brother go into the business?"

"Not much! His health settles that for him. Besides, he 's too bookish, and father 'll let him do what he pleases, anyway--he does n't mind having one son of that stripe. But the other son--he must go into the mill, whether he wants to or not!"

"Could you get to West Point without your father's permission? Don't you have to be sent by somebody--your Congressman, is n't it?"

"Oh, there 's a lot of red tape, and father could block the whole game, I suppose. If he does--well, I 'd enlist and get into the ranks and work my way up, rather than go into that dingy old office and tie myself to a desk and a telephone."

Forrest got upon his feet as he spoke, brushed a clinging weed leaf or two from his clothes, and stood looking gloomily down at Jane, who had risen also. "It 's evident I get no sympathy from you," he said. "I thought you were a girl who could understand a fellow's ambitions--not wet-blanket them."

Jane looked up at him, smiling, although her eyes were still troubled.

"I can, I think," she said. "Yet--somehow--I'm imagining the disappointment it must be to a father who has built up a great business like Townsend & Company's to have his son take no interest in it. I can't help thinking--"

"What?"--as Jane paused abruptly.

"Never mind."

"But I want to know what you can't help thinking."

"Well, I 'm wondering if it would be any harder for you to go into your father's office than it is for Peter to work with my father in the note-paper factory. Do you know what Peter wants to be?"

"No. I know he has a good position for his age, with the Armstrongs."

"Yes, but Peter wants--has wanted for six years--to be a chemist--an expert, you know. Oh, I 'm not sure I ought to tell you--please never speak of it. Even father does n't know it's any more than a boy's fancy. Peter could n't afford the years of training, of course--and father can't spare him. There are"--as Forrest looked surprised--"more people dependent on father and the boys than you know of--and I must n't tell you. All I want you to know is that"--Jane smiled wistfully--"there are other people who can't have their own way--and who are making the best of it, and pretty bravely, too."

Mrs. Bell came to the door of the house, and with a pleasant nod and smile to Forrest, told Jane that a certain bowl of bread-dough had reached a critical condition of lightness. The girl picked up her basket, and Forrest bent to toss into it the weeds he had thrown out.

"Please don't feel I 'm an unsympathetic listener," begged Jane, as her visitor took his leave.

"I won't. I know you mean it all right. I just think you don't understand all the facts in the case. Much obliged to you for hearing me out. If I turn up missing some day, you 'll know you did your part, and gave me the proper grandmotherly advice." And Forrest swung away through the gate with a reckless air, which Jane thought rather melodramatic, and quite in keeping with a certain staginess sometimes apparent in the youth's bearing.

Jane's acquaintance with Olive Townsend had progressed very slowly.

Olive was not a girl who possessed the gift of making many warm friendships. She was not well liked even by the young people of her own chosen circle. Girl visitors were not frequent at the Townsend house, and Olive was seldom seen coming or going with one or another of such friends. Yet there was something about her personality which held a strong attraction for Jane, and made her want to know Olive well.

When Peter returned from his first horseback ride in Olive's company, Jane had waited with interest for his description of the event. Peter always told Jane his experiences--for the reason, perhaps, that she never demanded them from him, never betrayed his confidences, and invariably showed her appreciation of his comradeship.

"She 's an odd girl," said Peter to Jane. "She seemed princ.i.p.ally occupied, for the first two miles, in noticing how I rode, whether I kept elbows in, head up, back stiff, like herself, and whether I held my whip in the proper position. We jogged along at a fussy little pace, talking about nothing in particular, and minding our p's and q's as if we were at Professor Miller's riding academy, with the eye of the master on us."

"I hope she was satisfied with your correct style," Jane said. "I saw you start, and I thought you looked more at home in the saddle than she."

"I probably am. After riding everything on grandfather's farm ever since I was a little shaver, and breaking every colt he had for the three years we lived there, I ought to feel fairly comfortable on a model saddle-horse like the one she gave me. She's been trained in the school, which leaves a lot of things to be desired, to my way of thinking. She broke loose all right, though, when I got my chance to show her what my idea of the sport is."

Peter's face took on a comical expression, and Jane hurried him on with an eager "Well?"

"We got out on the Northboro Road. You know that long stretch where there are so few houses--just a sort of lane between big trees, shady and cool, and the road like a training-track at this time of year?"

Jane nodded.

"I proposed that we let out a reef or two. She agreed, and we broke into a baby canter. I kept hitting up the pace a little. Her horse caught the idea, and began to quicken. She b.u.mped about a bit, but I saw she would know how to stay on, even if she moved faster than she ever had before. Just as we got up a fairly decent speed, one of those little _crack-a-cracks_ of motor-cycles came bursting out of a driveway, and both our horses shied and threatened to bolt.

"It was nothing, you know; they were over it in a jiffy, and she kept her seat all right, and showed she was game. But it stirred both horses to take the rest of that stretch at as pretty a gallop as you 'd care to see; and when I saw the girl was all right, I shouted, 'Come on!' and let them have it. I tell you, she forgot the riding academy and Professor Miller, and rode for fair. It was jolly good fun, and she enjoyed it, too."

Peter laughed reminiscently. Jane remarked that she had noticed Olive's ma.s.ses of black hair were not in quite such trim shape when she came home from that ride as upon setting forth; and Peter admitted that upon that joyous gallop she had dropped not only her whip, but most of her hairpins, of which latter articles he had been able to recover for her only a few.

"That's all the girl needs," he observed, sagely. "Just shake out a few of her hairpins each time you 're with her, and she 'll learn how to be good friends with you."

"I don't have much chance to shake out her hairpins," Jane objected.

"You will. You're to go next time--some day when her brother Forrest is away, and I can ride his horse and you the one I had. I told her a pitiful tale of how you loved to ride, how well you could do it, and----"

"Peter!"

"Oh, I didn't whine--just let her know I was n't the only horseman in the family. She 'll ask you--see if she doesn't; if she doesn't I won't go my self."

Olive did not ask Jane, however, and after one more ride with her, Peter suddenly became too busy to accept her invitations. Olive went off by herself one day, suffered a fall and a sprained shoulder, and was thereby initiated at last into Jane's friendship.

"My sister sent me over," said Murray Townsend, one June evening, to Jane, who, hemming a tiny ruffle, sat in the western sunlight upon the little back porch, where the family now spent their evenings, enjoying the first blossomings of the small garden. "She's been fretting all day with that shoulder of hers she hurt last week, and vows she can't get through the evening with me. The others are all away--as usual. Won't you do us the favour of coming over?"

"Was it really her suggestion--or yours?" Jane challenged him, for it was not the first time he had made the attempt, upon one excuse or or another, to get her across the street.

"Hers, on my honour, though I 'll admit I seconded the motion. She really wants you. She's lying on a couch round on the side porch. It's a jolly place, or would be if it--had you in it," he nearly said, but discreetly subst.i.tuted--"had such a nice crowd in it as this."

He glanced from one to another of the group upon the little porch. Ross was softly breathing notes from a flute. Mr. and Mrs. Bell sat side by side, in happy comradeship. Peter, his long legs extending well out upon the gra.s.s before the porch, whittled at a bit of wood; and Nancy, close beside her cousin Ross, was holding for him a page of music, which he evidently was trying for the first time.