The Boy Grew Older Part 11

CHAPTER XIII

At the age of eleven months and eight days Pat walked for the first time. Peter thought he might have been considerate enough to have chosen a Sunday. His first tooth came on a Sunday, but that wasn't any fun.

Besides, it couldn't be tied exactly to some particular day and minute the way that the walking could. Nor was there any gaiety about it.

However, Peter did not quite miss the walking for he came in time to see the last couple of hundred yards.

It was a rainy Sat.u.r.day and Peter happened home early. Kate met him in the hall with a finger at her lips. "He's walking."

She seemed to feel that if anybody said anything about it the child would probably grow self-conscious and collapse. There appeared to be a certain sagacity in that. It was not an experiment but an adventure. One step led to another. At terrific speed Pat went round and round the room. He might have been Bobby Walthour trying to steal a lap in a six day race. Kate and Peter watched him breathlessly from behind the curtains of the living-room.

"How long has this been going on?" Peter wanted to know.

"It's these ten minutes."

Peter pulled out his gold stop watch and created thereby a psychic crisis. Perhaps Pat felt that his amateur standing was in jeopardy. At any rate he tripped on the edge of a rug, almost turned a somersault, blacked his eye and cried for half an hour.

He did not even attempt to walk again for a week. After that it became habitual. Up to this time Peter had never said much to anybody about his son. He did not talk to the men at the office about the child. There wouldn't be any sense in interrupting Charlie Hall in the middle of a story about city politics with, "My son's got two teeth." They were all busy men and it was not conceivable that they would care how much Pat Neale weighed.

Walking was a little different. Maybe it wasn't exactly a first page story but still Peter wanted to tell somebody about it. For the first time he was disposed to show off Pat--in person. Of course eleven months and eights days wasn't a record. Peter would have to look into that and find out the best accepted performance. He remembered being told that his own brother had walked at eight months but he had no means of knowing whether or not that was authentic.

The desire to confide in somebody eventually took Peter around to a stage door, though not the one at the end of the alley. From a Sunday graphic section he had noticed that Vonnie Bandana was playing in a musical show called "Harvest Moon." Vonnie Bandana wasn't really her name. The caption said Vonnie Ryan and Peter was sure it was the same girl. Evidently the Eight Bandana Sisters had gone the way of Brook Farm and Halcyon Hall and many another experiment in co-operation. Vonnie knew him all right.

"You're the man that married Maria Algarez," she said.

"Yes, but she's gone away."

"I'm sorry."

"That's all right. It was a long time ago. Almost a year now. She was a good dancer, wasn't she?"

"Maria, oh, yes, she could dance. I wondered what became of her."

"I don't know that. I haven't heard from her at all. I think she's abroad."

"Have you seen our show?"

"No, I just happened to notice your picture in the Bulletin last Sunday."

"Did you? Wasn't that smart of you? I've got a part in this. Lines and everything. I sing a song. You know I don't sing it much. Just one verse and the chorus and then I dance it. The dance is all right."

Peter and Vonnie had been slowly walking away from the theatre towards Broadway while they carried on this discussion and when they reached the avenue Vonnie stopped.

"Are you going my way? I go up to a Hundred and Sixty-eighth street.

Just a little this side of Albany."

"Well, as a matter of fact, I was wondering if maybe you wouldn't come out and have supper with me. I just happened to be going by the theatre and I stopped around and thought I might run into you."

"Listen," said Vonnie. "I'll have supper with you, but don't pull any more of that 'I just happened to be going by the theatre.' That's awful.

You ought to say you've been planning to come and see me for a week and came all the way in from New Roch.e.l.le just special. You don't know anything about women, do you?"

"I guess I don't," said Peter very soberly.

"Oh, I am sorry," Vonnie laid her hand on his arm. "I didn't mean anything by that. Forget it. You're all right even if I don't remember your name. Did you ever tell it to me?"

"My name's Peter Neale."

"You're not the Peter Neale that writes in the Bulletin, are you?"

"Yes, I do a sporting column. That looking 'em over stuff."

"I've been looking for you. Do you know I almost wrote you a letter.

Where do you get that stuff about Sandow Mertes being a more valuable man than George Browne?"

"Browne can't hit lefthanders."

"That's the bunk. You and the rest of the sporting writers keep pulling that stuff about him and of course he can't. Suppose there was somebody standing in the wings every night just before I came on, yelling at me, 'Vonnie, you can't dance,' do you suppose I could go on and do that song for a cent? Of course I couldn't. You and the rest of you, you're just ruining this fellow. The best looking young outfielder I've seen in ten years. Why he could run up a hill faster than Mertes could roll down one."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Peter. It was the boldest speech he had ever made to a woman and he did it without turning a hair. Vonnie was wrong. George Browne couldn't hit lefthanders. Before he took her home Vonnie had arranged to go with him to the Polo Grounds the next day and to come and see the baby on Sunday.

"Here," she said as he was turning away from the door of her apartment, "you've got a kiss coming to you. When you live up as far as One Hundred and Sixty-eighth Street you've got to do at least that much for any fellow that takes you home."

"And say, listen," said Vonnie, just before she closed the door, "next month I'm going to move to Two Hundred and Forty-second Street."

CHAPTER XIV

Vonnie came to the flat the next Sunday. The moment might have embarra.s.sed Peter if it had been anybody else.

But Vonnie had such an imperious and lofty way of rising above all things traditionally embarra.s.sing to Peter and snooting down at them that she carried him with her. At least part way.

"Why haven't you got the young Giant in his ball park over there," said Vonnie pointing to the Stockade.

"I'm changing him."

"No game," said Vonnie, "wet grounds."

"Get out of that. Never had a baby in my life," she continued, briskly rapping her knuckles on the woodwork above her head, "but I can't be worse at that job than you are."

She pushed Peter away, but did not begin on the business in hand immediately. "He's a good kid. A fine husky kid. I know now why you asked me here. You figured if I wanted one for myself you'd let me know where to apply."

"Never mind the compliments," said Peter. "Change his diapers."

Vonnie had brought the new freedom into his life.

"No doubt about his being yours," she went on. "Everything up to the chin is you--of course I'm just guessing--but Maria left him those eyes and that nose. Maybe she left him more than that. He's marked for the show business. You might as well make up your mind to that."