The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 5

"This here toweling gone up any?" The threads of the a.s.sayed linen still lingered on her thin lips as she decided. "If it's the same price it was, I'll take two yards." Then, returning to the question of lesser importance, "Well, I can't help you none with them worms until you tell me whether they're chewers or suckers."

Miss Frenzy, putting on a second pair of gla.s.ses over those she habitually wore, now essayed the project of cutting off the two yards of toweling.

"Chewers or-er-ahem, suckers? I really cannot say. Shall you be astonished at my negligence when I tell you that I have not yet taken the measures to determine whether these worms are, as you so grotesquely term them, chewers or-er-ahem, suckers?"

Mrs. Tyarck laughed sarcastically. "For Heaven's sake, Frenzy Giddings!

it's a wonder to me you know _anything_, the time you take with your words! You ain't acquainted with your own stock, I see, for here you've cut me off two yards of the twenty-cent when I asked for the ten-cent.

Well, it's your mistake, so I'll take it as if 't wuz what I'm payin'

for; but look here, Frenzy, you've no call to be wool-gatherin' _your_ time of life."

The rough criticism had no effect upon the native elegance of the old shopkeeper. She smiled at Mrs. Tyarck's outburst with an air of polite, if detached, sympathy. Dropping her scissors, she turned to the window, poking her head between hanging flannel nightgowns to remark:

"Pleasant weather and many taking advantage of it; were I not occupied I, too, should promenade."

Mrs. Tyarck meanwhile creaked about the little store on a tour of inspection. Some especially frivolous sets of "Hair Goods" underwent her instant repudiation. "I wear my own, thank G.o.d!" she exclaimed, adding, "it's good enough for Tyarck and me." Picking up a cl.u.s.ter of children's handkerchiefs, she carried them to the window for more complete condemnation, muttering: "Ark-animals and b.u.t.terflies! Now what's all _that_ foolishness got to do with the nose?" As Mrs. Tyarck stood apostrophizing the handkerchiefs there was a whir outside the store, the toot of a claxon, a girl's excited laugh, the flash of a scarlet jersey and tam-o'-shanter. The two women, lowering their heads after the furtive fashion that obtains in country districts, took the thing in.

They stared after the automobile.

"Pleasure-riding, I see," remarked the near-sighted Miss Frenzy. "Young folks appreciate the automobiles; the extreme velocity seems peculiarly to gratify their fancy!"

Mrs. Tyarck pursed up her lips; she looked with narrow speculation after the pair, her thin face hardening.

"Them two is going out to the Forked Road Supper House," she prophesied.

"No daughter of mine wouldn't be allowed to set foot in that place.

Well, you're lookin' at two of a kind. That red sweater of hern won't help her none."

Miss Frenzy, now sorting change in slow pensiveness, demurred. "She is young," she remarked. "She entered the store recently for some scarlet wool for that very jersey" (Miss Frenzy was at pains to avoid the word "sweater"), "and I observed her young cheeks-quite like peaches, yes,"

insisted Miss Frenzy, sentimentally, "quite like peaches-I could wish that she should be careful of her complexion and not ride too extensively in the cold air."

"There's more to be thought of than complexions, these days," said the other woman, coldly. There was relentless judgment in her face, but she went on: "Well, 'tain't meetin'-time yet. Say I step back and take a look at them worms 'n' see ef there's anything I can recommend."

The thin figure of the shopkeeper preceding her, and Mrs. Tyarck casting looks of disparagement on all she pa.s.sed, the two took their way into the little garden. Here, enclosed by high palings, shut away from everything but sun and air, was Miss Frenzy's kingdom, and here there came a sudden change in her manner. She did not lose the careful elegance of the polite shopkeeper, but into gesture and voice crept an authority, the subtle sense of ownership and power invariably felt by those who own a bit of land, who can make things grow.

"Step judiciously," she admonished her visitor; "my cuc.u.mber-frames are somewhat eliminated by the tall verdure: here and there I have set out new plants. I should deplore having my arrangements disturbed."

Mrs. Tyarck sniffed. "You and your garden!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; but she resolutely made her way, eyes squinting with curiosity. Settling her hat, whose black wing stuck out with a virtuous swagger, Mrs. Tyarck gave herself all the married woman's amus.e.m.e.nt over the puttering concerns of a spinster.

Soon, however, as the two women stole farther into the dense square of growing things, the envy of the natural flower-lover crept into her sharp comments. "My!" she said, jealously-"my! ain't your white duchy doin' good? Say, look at them gooseberries! I suspect you don't have no particular use for 'em?" It was said of Mrs. Tyarck that she was skilful at paving the way for gifts of any kind. She made this last suggestion with a hard, conscious laugh.

All around the little garden was a fence like the high fences in London suburbs. Close against it honeysuckle poured saffron cascades, a mulberry-tree showed the beginning of conical fruitage. Blackberry vines sprayed white stars over a sunny bit of stone wall. Amid a patch of feathery gra.s.ses swayed the prim carillons of canterbury-bells; soft gaieties of sweet-williams and phlox were ma.s.sed against the silvery weather-boarding of Miss Frenzy's kitchen. As the two women, skirts held high, paused in front of the white-rose bush the indefatigability of the chewers and suckers was revealed. Already thousands of young rose leaves were eaten to the green framework. Miss Frenzy, with a sudden exclamation, bent to a branch on which were cl.u.s.ters of dainty buds.

"Ah-ah! _Millions!_" she whispered. Then, tremulously defying the worms: "_No, no, no! How dare you? Hi, hi, hi!_ there's another! Ugh! Look here! Mercy! See that spray!"

With every e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, shudderingly emitted, the bony hand went out like lightning, plucked something gingerly from a leaf, gave it a swift, vindictive pinch, and abhorrently tossed it away.

"That's right," nodded Mrs. Tyarck. "Squeeze 'em and heave 'em-it's about all you can do. They'll try to take advantage of you every time!

There's no grat.i.tude in worms! They ain't pertikler. It don't mean nothing to them that roses is pretty or grows good. They want to eat.

Squeeze 'em and heave 'em! It's all you can do!"

There was a distant tinkle of the store bell. Miss Frenzy, absorbed in her daily horror, did not hear this. "Ugh! Ugh!" she was moaning. Again the long hand went out in a capturing gesture. "There-there! I told you so; quant.i.ties more, _quant.i.ties_! Yet last night I was under the impression that I had disposed of the greater majority."

Mrs. Tyarck's attention was diverted from the rose-worms and concentrated on the deserted shop. "I heard the bell," warned that accurate lady. Then, reprovingly: "Don't you never have any one to keep store when you're out here? You'll lose custom, Frenzy. What's more, if you ain't careful, you'll lose stock. Ivy Corners ain't what it used to be; there's them Eastern peddlers that walks around as big as life, and speakin' English to fool everybody; and now, with the war and all, every other person you see is a German spy."

As she spoke a large form appeared in the back doorway of Miss Frenzy's shop and a primly dressed woman entered the garden. She had a curiously large and blank face. She wore a mannishly made suit of slate-gray, wiry material, and her hat had two large pins of green which, inserted in front, glittered high on her forehead like bulbous, misplaced eyes. This lady carried a netted catch-all distended with many k.n.o.bby parcels and a bundle of tracts. As she saw the two in the garden she stretched her formless mouth over the white smile of recently installed porcelain, but the long reaches of her face had no radiance. The lady was, however, furnished with a curious catarrhal hawking which she used parenthetically, like comment. What she now had to say she prefaced with this juridic hawking.

"Well, there ain't no responsibility here, I see! Store door open, n.o.body around! Them two young ones of Smedge's lookin' in at the things, rubbin' their dirty hands all over the gla.s.s case, choosin' what's their favorite dry-goods! All I can say is, Frenzy, that either you trust yourself too much or you expect that Serapham and Cherab.u.m is going to keep store for you."

Mrs. Tyarck turned as to a kindred spirit, remarking, with a contemptuous wink: "Frenzy's rose-worms is on her mind. Seems she's overrun with 'em."

Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, the newcomer, strode up the little path to the scene of action, but at the sharp exclamation of Miss Frenzy she halted.

"Have a care!" said the gaunt shopkeeper, authoritatively. She waved a bony hand in ceremonious warning. "I should have warned you before,"

explained Miss Frenzy, "but the impediment in your way is my cat-trap.

It would seem that I am systematically pestered with marauding cats. The annoyance continuing for some time, I am obliged to originate devices that curtail their penetrations."

Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, indignantly whisking her skirt away from a strange-looking arrangement of corset steels and barrel staves connected by wires, strode into some deep gra.s.s, then gave vent to a majestic hawk of displeasure:

"What's this I got on my shoes? Fly-paper? For the land's sake! Now how in the name of Job do I get that off?"

Mrs. Tyarck, ingratiatingly perturbed, came to the rescue of her friend; the two wrestled with adhesive bits of paper, but certain fragments, affected by contact, fulfilled their utmost prerogative and were not detachable. When they were finally prevailed upon to leave the shoe of Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, they stuck with surprising pertinacity to the glove of her friend. The outcries of the two ladies were full of disgust and criticism.

"Well, Frenzy Giddings! You need a man in here! Some one to clean up after you. All this old paper 'n' stuff around! It's a wonder you don't get into it yourself, but then _you_ know where to step," they said, grudgingly.

Miss Frenzy hardly heard them; she was still peering carefully under the leaves and around the many cl.u.s.ters of babyish rosebuds. "Ah-ah!" she was still saying, shudderingly. Out went her hand with the same abhorrent gesture. "After all my watchfulness! Another, and another!"

Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, indignant over this indifference to her fly-paper discomfort, now sought recognition of the damages she had sustained:

"I dun'no' will this plaguey stuff ever come off my mohair! Well, I'll never set foot in _here_ again! Say, Frenzy, I can send up one of my boys to-morrow and he'll clean up for you, fly-paper and all, for ten cents."

For a moment Miss Frenzy hesitated. She stood tall and sheltering over the rose-bush, the little shawl thrown over her shoulders lifted in the breeze. She looked something like a gray moth: her arms long and thin like antennae, her spectacled eyes, gave her a moth's fateful look of flutter and blindness before light and scorching flame.

"You are most kind, but"-with a discouraged sigh-"it cannot be done."

"It can't be done?" hawked Mrs. Cap.r.o.n.

Mrs. Tyarck turned a sharp look of disapproval around the little garden, saying in a low tone, "It's reel sloven in here; she'd ought to do something for it."

"Yes," insisted Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, "you want cleaning up in here; that's what.

That seedy gra.s.s! Them ragged vines! Your flowers overrun you-and that there fly-paper-"

Miss Frenzy sought to change the subject. With an air of obstinacy that sat curiously upon her, she directed the attention of her visitors to a young tree shooting up in green a.s.surance.

"My mystery," she announced, with gentle archness. "Not planted by human hands. Undoubtedly a seed dropped by a bird in flight. A fruit-tree, I suspect-possibly cherry, but whether wild or of the domestic species remains to be seen; only the fruit will solve the enigma."

Mrs. Cap.r.o.n and Mrs. Tyarck regarded the little tree carelessly. "Wild,"

they p.r.o.nounced as one woman, adding: "Wild cherry. When it's big, it will dirty your yard something fearful."

"I had a friend," related Mrs. Tyarck. "Her husband was a Mason. Seems she had a wild cherry-tree into her yard and she could never lay out a piece of light goods for bleachin' without fear of stains, and then the flies and the sparrers racketin' around all summer-why, it nearly druv her crazy!"

Miss Frenzy ignored these comments. "My mystery," she repeated, with reflecting eyes. "The seed dropped by a bird in flight. Only the fruit will solve the enigma." With an air of ceremonious explanation, Miss Giddings turned to the two visitors. "I should acquaint you," she remarked in soft courtesy, "with the fact that, much as I regret the necessity of the fly-paper, it is, as you might say, _calculated_."