Seventeen Part 22

Facing him, at a little distance, a rugged figure in homely garments stood leaning upon a hoe and regarding George with a cold interest. The apex of this figure was a volcanic straw hat, triangular in profile and coned with an open crater emitting reddish wisps, while below the hat were several features, but more whiskers, at the top of a long, corrugated red neck of sterling worth. A husky voice issued from the whiskers, addressing George.

"I seen you!" it said. "I seen you eatin'! This here farm is supposed to be a sanitary farm, and you'd ought of knew better. Go it, doggone you!

Go it!"

George complied. And three spectators, remaining aloof, but watching zealously, began to feel their lost faith in Providence returning into them; their faces brightened slowly, and without relapse. It was a visible thing how the world became fairer and better in their eyes during that little while they stood there. And William saw that his Little Sweethearts had been an inspired purchase, after all; they had delivered the final tap upon a tottering edifice. George's deeds at dinner had unsettled, but Little Sweethearts had overthrown--and now there was awful work among the ruins, to an ironical accompaniment of music from the front yard, where people danced in heaven's sunshine!

This accompaniment came to a stop, and Johnnie Watson jumped. He seized each of his companions by a sleeve and spoke eagerly, his eyes glowing with a warm and brotherly light. "Here!" he cried. "We better get around there--this looks like it was goin' to last all afternoon. Joe, you get the next dance with her, and just about time the music slows up you dance her around so you can stop right near where Bill will be standin', so Bill can get her quick for the dance after that. Then, Bill, you do the same for me, and I'll do the same for Joe again, and then, Joe, you do it for Bill again, and then Bill for me--and so on. If we go in right now and work together we can crowd the rest out, and there won't anybody else get to dance with her the whole day! Come on quick!"

United in purpose, the three ran lightly to the dancing-lawn, and Mr.

Bullitt was successful, after a little debate, in obtaining the next dance with the lovely guest of the day. "I did promise big Untle Georgiec.u.ms," she said, looking about her.

"Well, I don't think he'll come," said Joe. "That is, I'm pretty sure he won't."

A shade fell upon the exquisite face. "No'ty. Bruvva Josie-Joe! The Men ALWAYS tum when Lola promises dances. Mustn't be rude!"

"Well--" Joe began, when he was interrupted by the Swedish lady named Anna, who spoke to them from the steps of the house. Of the merrymakers they were the nearest.

"Dot pick fella," said Anna, "dot one dot eats--we make him in a petroom. He holler! He tank he neet some halp."

"Does he want a doctor?" Joe asked.

"Doctor? No! He want make him in a amyoulance for hospital!"

"I'll go look at him," Johnnie Watson volunteered, running up. "He's my cousin, and I guess I got to take the responsibility."

Miss Pratt paid the invalid the tribute of one faintly commiserating glance toward the house. "Well," she said, "if people would rather eat too much than dance!" She meant "dance with ME!" though she thought it prettier not to say so. "Come on, Bruvva Josie-Joe!" she cried, joyously.

And a little later Johnnie Watson approached her where she stood with a restored and refulgent William, about to begin the succeeding dance.

Johnnie dropped into her hand a ring, receiving one in return. "I thought I better GET it," he said, offering no further explanation.

"I'll take care of his until we get home. He's all right," said Johnnie, and then perceiving a sudden advent of apprehension upon the sensitive brow of William, he went on rea.s.suringly: "He's doin' as well as anybody could expect; that is--after the crazy way he DID! He's always been considered the dumbest one in all our relations--never did know how to act. I don't mean he's exactly not got his senses, or ought to be watched, anything like that--and of course he belongs to an awful good family--but he's just kind of the black sheep when it comes to intelligence, or anything like that. I got him as comfortable as a person could be, and they're givin' him hot water and mustard and stuff, but what he needs now is just to be kind of quiet. It'll do him a lot o'

good," Johnnie concluded, with a spark in his voice, "to lay there the rest of the afternoon and get quieted down, kind of."

"You don't think there's any--" William began, and, after a pause, continued--"any hope--of his getting strong enough to come out and dance afterwhile?"

Johnnie shook his head. "None in the world!" he said, conclusively. "The best we can do for him is to let him entirely alone till after supper, and then ask n.o.body to sit on the back seat of the trolley-car goin'

home, so we can make him comfortable back there, and let him kind of stretch out by himself."

Then gaily tinkled harp, gaily sang flute and violin! Over the greensward William lightly bore his lady, while radiant was the cleared sky above the happy dancers. William's fingers touched those delicate fingers; the exquisite face smiled rosily up to him; undreamable sweetness beat rhythmically upon his glowing ears; his feet moved in a rhapsody of companionship with hers. They danced and danced and danced!

Then Joe danced with her, while William and Johnnie stood with hands upon each other's shoulders and watched, mayhap with longing, but without spite; then Johnnie danced with her while Joe and William watched--and then William danced with her again.

So pa.s.sed the long, ineffable afternoon away--ah, Seventeen!

"... 'Jav a good time at the trolley-party?" the clerk in the corner drug-store inquired that evening.

"Fine!" said William, taking his overcoat from the hook where he had left it.

"How j' like them Little Sweethearts I sold you?"

"FINE!" said William.

XXII

FORESHADOWINGS

Now the last rose had blown; the dandelion globes were long since on the wind; gladioli and golden-glow and salvia were here; the season moved toward asters and the goldenrod. This haloed summer still idled on its way, yet all the while sped quickly; like some languid lady in an elevator.

There came a Sunday--very hot.

Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, having walked a scorched half-mile from church, drooped thankfully into wicker chairs upon their front porch, though Jane, who had accompanied them, immediately darted away, swinging her hat by its ribbon and skipping as lithesomely as if she had just come forth upon a cool morning.

"I don't know how she does it!" her father moaned, glancing after her and drying his forehead temporarily upon a handkerchief. "That would merely kill me dead, after walking in this heat."

Then, for a time, the two were content to sit in silence, nodding to occasional acquaintances who pa.s.sed in the desultory after-church procession. Mr. Baxter fanned himself with sporadic little bursts of energy which made his straw hat creak, and Mrs. Baxter sighed with the heat, and gently rocked her chair.

But as a group of five young people pa.s.sed along the other side of the street Mr. Baxter abruptly stopped fanning himself, and, following the direction of his gaze, Mrs. Baxter ceased to rock. In half-completed att.i.tudes they leaned slightly forward, sharing one of those pauses of parents who unexpectedly behold their offspring.

"My soul!" said William's father. "Hasn't that girl gone home YET?"

"He looks pale to me," Mrs. Baxter murmured, absently. "I don't think he seems at all well, lately."

During seventeen years Mr. Baxter had gradually learned not to protest anxieties of this kind, unless he desired to argue with no prospect of ever getting a decision. "Hasn't she got any HOME?" he demanded, testily. "Isn't she ever going to quit visiting the Parchers and let people have a little peace?"

Mrs. Baxter disregarded this outburst as he had disregarded her remark about William's pallor. "You mean Miss Pratt?" she inquired, dreamily, her eyes following the progress of her son. "No, he really doesn't look well at all."

"Is she going to visit the Parchers all summer?" Mr. Baxter insisted.

"She already has, about," said Mrs. Baxter.

"Look at that boy!" the father grumbled. "Mooning along with those other moon-calves--can't even let her go to church alone! I wonder how many weeks of time, counting it out in hours, he's wasted that way this summer?"

"Oh, I don't know! You see, he never goes there in the evening."

"What of that? He's there all day, isn't he? What do they find to talk about? That's the mystery to me! Day after day; hours and hours--My soul! What do they SAY?"

Mrs. Baxter laughed indulgently. "People are always wondering that about the other ages. Poor Willie! I think that a great deal of the time their conversation would be probably about as inconsequent as it is now. You see Willie and Joe Bullitt are walking one on each side of Miss Pratt, and Johnnie Watson has to walk behind with May Parcher. Joe and Johnnie are there about as much as Willie is, and, of course, it's often his turn to be nice to May Parcher. He hasn't many chances to be tete-a-tete with Miss Pratt."

"Well, she ought to go home. I want that boy to get back into his senses. He's in an awful state."

"I think she is going soon," said Mrs. Baxter. "The Parchers are to have a dance for her Friday night, and I understand there's to be a floor laid in the yard and great things. It's a farewell party."

"That's one mercy, anyhow!"

"And if you wonder what they say," she resumed, "why, probably they're all talking about the party. And when Willie IS alone with her--well, what does anybody say?" Mrs. Baxter interrupted herself to laugh. "Jane, for instance--she's always fascinated by that darky, Genesis, when he's at work here in the yard, and they have long, long talks; I've seen them from the window. What on earth do you suppose they talk about? That's where Jane is now. She knew I told Genesis I'd give him something if he'd come and freeze the ice-cream for us to-day, and when we got here she heard the freezer and hopped right around there. If you went out to the back porch you'd find them talking steadily--but what on earth about I couldn't guess to save my life!"