The Innocents Part 15

"Well," and Father thawed a little, "that's what they're all saying, but, confidentially, and don't let this go any further, it isn't as much as that. This is between you and I, now."

"Oh yessss," breathed the flattered shoeman. "There's your shoes, Mr.

Appleby. Four dollars, please. Thank you. And let me tell you, confidentially, you got the best bargain in the store. I can see with half an eye you've learned a lot about shoes. I suppose it's only natural, tramping and wearing them out so fast and visiting the big burgs and all--"

"Huh! Ought to know shoes. Used to be in business. Pilkings & Son's, little old New York. Me and old Pilky practically started the business together, as you might say."

"Well, well, well, well!" The shoeman stared in reverent amazement.

Then, as he could think of nothing further to say, he justly observed, "Well!"

"Yump. That reminds me. Make that boy of yours rearrange that counter case there. Those pink-satin evening slippers simply lose all their display value when you stick those red-kid bed-slippers right up ferninst them that way.

"Yes, yes, that's so. I'm much obliged to you for the tip, Mr. Appleby.

That's what it is to be trained in a big burg. But I'll have to rearrange it myself. That boy Peter is no good. I'm letting him go, come Sat.u.r.day."

"That so?" said Father; then, authoritatively: "Peter, my boy, you ought to try to make good here. Nothing I'd like better--if I had the time--than to grow up in a shoe-store in a nice, pretty village like this."

"Yes, that's what I've told him many's the time. Do you hear what Mr.

Appleby says, Peter?... Say, Mr. Appleby, does this town really strike you as having the future for the shoe business?"

"Why, sure."

"Are you ever likely to think about going back into the shoe business again, some day? 'Course," apologetically, "you wouldn't ever want to touch anything in as small a burg as this, but in a way it's kind of a pity. I was just thinking of how the youngsters here would flock to have you give 'em your expert advice as a sporting gentleman, instead of hanging around that cheap-John shoe-store that those confounded worthless Simpson boys try to run."

Father carefully put down the bundle of his new shoes, drew a long breath, then tried to look bored again. Cautiously: "Yes, I've thought some of going back into business. 'Course I'd hate to give up my exploring and all, but-- Progress, you know; hate to lay down the burden of big affairs after being right in the midst of them for so long."

Which was a recollection of some editorial Father had read in a stray roadside newspaper. "And you mustn't suppose I'd be sniffy about Lipsittsville. No, no; no, indeed. Not at all. I must say I don't know when I've seen a more wide-awake, pretty town--and you can imagine how many towns I must have seen. Maples and cement walks and nice houses and--uh--wide-awake town.... Well, who knows! Perhaps some day I might come back here and talk business with you. Ha, ha! Though I wouldn't put in one cent of capital. No, sir! Not one red cent. All my money is invested with my son-in-law--you know, Harris Hartwig, the famous chemical works. Happen to know um?"

"Oh yes, indeed! Harry Sartwig. I don't know him _personally_, but of course I've heard of him. Well, I do wish you'd think it over, some day, Mr. Appleby. Indeed I understand about the capital. If you and me ever did happen to come to terms, I'd try to see my way clear to giving you an interest in the business, in return for your city experience and your expert knowledge and fame and so on as an explorer--not that we outfit so many explorers here. Hee, hee!"

"Well, maybe I'll think it over, some day. Well--well, maybe I'll see you again before I get out of town. I'm kind of planning to stick around here for a day or two. I'll talk over the suggestion with Mrs. Appleby.

Me, I could probably call off my wager; but she is really the one that you'd have to convince. She's crazy for us to hike out and tramp clear down into Mexico and Central America. Doesn't mind bandits and revolutions no more than you and I would a mouse."

In his attempt to let people bluff themselves and accept him as a person to be taken seriously, Father kept on trying to adhere to the truth. But certainly this last statement of his was the grossest misrepresentation of Mother's desires. Mother Appleby, with her still unvanquished preference for tea and baths, did not have the slightest desire to encounter bandits, snakes, deserts, or cacti of any variety.

"Well, look _here_, Mr. Appleby; if you are going to be around, couldn't you and the madam come to dinner, as I was so bold as to suggest awhile ago? That would give us a chance to discuss things. Aside from any future business d.i.c.ker between you and me personally, I'd like to show you just why Lipsittsville is going to be a bigger town than Freiburg or Taormina or Hongkong or Bryan or any of the other towns in the county, let 'em say what they like! Or couldn't you come to supper to-night?

Then we could let the ladies gossip, and I'll have Doc Schergan come in, and maybe him and me between us could persuade you to think of taking a partnership with me--wouldn't cost you a cent of capital, neither. Why, the doc was saying, just this morning, when we was speaking of having read about you in the paper--he was saying that you were the kind of man we need for president of our country club, instead of some dude like that sissified Buck Simpson. Buck is as punk an athlete as he is a shoeman, and, believe me, Mr. Appleby, we've got the makings of a fine country club. We expect to have a club-house and tennis-courts and golluf-links and all them things before long. We got a croquet-ground right now! And every Fourthajuly we all go for a picnic. Now can't the madam come? Make it supper this evening. But, say, I want to warn you that if we ever did talk business, I don't see how I could very well offer you more than a forty-per-cent. interest, in any case."

"No," growled Father, "wouldn't take over a third interest. Don't believe in demanding too much. Live and let live, that's my motto."

"Yes, sir, and a fine motto it is, too," admired the shoeman.

"What time is supper?"

"... and before I get through with it I'll own a chain of shoe-stores from here to Indianapolis," said Father. "I'll be good for twenty years'

more business, and I'll wake this town up."

"I do believe you will, Father. But I just can't believe yet that you've actually signed the contract and are a partner," Mother yearned. "Why, it ain't possible."

"Guess it is possible, though, judging by this hundred dollar advance,"

Father chuckled. "Nice fellow, that shoeman--or he will be when he gets over thinking I'm a tin G.o.d and sits down and plays crib like I was an ordinary human being.... We ought to have larger show-windows. We'll keep Peter on--don't want to make the boy lose his job on account of me.

Give him another chance.... I'm just wambling, Mother, but I'm so excited at having a job again--"

With tiny pats of her arm, he stalked the street, conscious of the admiring gaze of the villagers, among whom ran the news that the famous explorer was going to remain with them.

When the landlord himself had preceded them up-stairs to the two rooms which the shoeman had engaged for the Applebys at the Star Hotel, Father chuckled: "Does it look more possible, now, with these rooms, eh? Let's see, we must get a nice little picture of a kitten in a basket, to hang over that radiator. Drat the landlord, I thought he'd stick here all evening, and--I want to kiss you, my old honey, my comrade!"

CHAPTER XVII

The Lipsittsville Pioneer Shoe Store found Mr. Seth Appleby the best investment it had ever made. The proprietor was timorous about having given away thirty-three per cent. of his profits. But Mr. Appleby did attract customers--from the banker's college-bred daughter to farmers from the other side of the Lake--and he really did sell more shoes. He became a person of lasting importance.

In a village, every clerk, every tradesman, has something of the same distinctive importance as the doctors, the lawyers, the ministers. It really makes a difference to you when Jim Smith changes from Brown's grocery to Robinson's, because Jim knows what kind of sugar-corn you like, and your second cousin married Jim's best friend. Bill Blank, the tailor, is not just a mysterious agent who produces your clothes, but a real personality, whose wife's bonnet is worth your study, even though you are the wife of the mayor. So to every person in Lipsittsville Mr.

Seth Appleby was not just a lowly person on a stool who helped one in the choice of shoes. He was a person, he was their brother, to be loved or hated. If he had gone out of the shoe business there would have been something else for him to do--he would have sold farm machinery or driven on a rural mail route or collected rents, and have kept the same acquaintances.

It was very pleasant to Father to pa.s.s down the village street in the sun, to call the town policeman "Ben" and the town banker "Major" and the town newspaperman "Lym," and to be hailed as "Seth" in return. It was diverting to join the little group of G. A. R. men in the back of the Filson Land and Farms Company office, and have even the heroes of Gettysburg pet him as a promising young adventurer and ask for his tales of tramping.

Father was rather conscience-stricken when he saw how the town accepted his pretense of being an explorer, but when he tried to tell the truth everybody thought that he was merely being modest, and he finally settled down contentedly to being a hero, to the great satisfaction of all the town, which pointed out to unfortunate citizens of Freiburg and Hongkong and Bryan and other rival villages that none of them had a real up-to-date hero with all modern geographical improvements. In time, as his partner, the shoeman, had predicted, Father was elected president of the clubless country club, and organized a cross-country hike in which he outdistanced all the others, including the young and boastful Buck Simpson.

He was slowly recognized as being "in society." To tell the truth, most of Lipsittsville was in society, but a few citizens weren't--Barney Bachschluss, the saloon-keeper; Tony, who sawed wood and mowed lawns; the workmen on the brick-yard and on the railway. Father was serenely established upon a social plane infinitely loftier than theirs.

He wore a giddy, spotted, bat-wing tie, and his grand good gray trousers were rigidly creased. He read editorials in the Indianapolis paper and discussed them with Doc Schergan at the drug-store.

The only trouble was that Mother had nothing to do. She was discontented, in their two rooms at the Star Hotel. No longer could she, as in her long years of flat life in New York, be content to sit dreaming and reading the paper. She was as brisk and strong and effective as Father. Open woods and the windy road had given her a restless joy in energy. She made a gown of gray silk and joined the Chautauqua Circle, but that was not enough.

On an evening of late August, when a breeze was in the maples, when the sunset was turquoise and citron green and the streets were serenely happy, Father took her out for a walk. They pa.s.sed the banker's mansion, with its big curving screened porch, and its tower, and brought up at a row of modern bungalows which had just been completed.

"I wanted you to see these," said Father, "because some time--this is a secret I been keeping--some time I guess we'll be able to rent one of these! Don't see why we can't early next year, the way things are going!"

"Oh, Father!" she said, almost tearfully.

"Would you like it?"

"Like it! With a real house and something to keep my hands busy! And maybe a kitty! And I would make you tea (I'm so tired of hotel food!) and we would sit out here on the porch--"

"Yes, you'd have old Mr. Seth Appleby for tea-room customer. He's better 'n anybody they got on Cape Cod!"

"Yes, and you _are_ better, too, Father!"

"You old honeymooner! Say, I've got an idea. I wonder if we couldn't sneak in a look inside of one of these bungalows. Let's try this door."

He shook the door-k.n.o.b of a bungalow so new that laths and mortar were still scattered about the yard. The door was locked. He tried the windows as well. But he could not get in. Three other bungalows they tried, and the fourth, the last of the row, was already occupied. But they did steal up on the porch of one bungalow, and they exclaimed like children when they beheld the big living-room, the huge fireplace, the built-in shelves and, beyond the living-room, what seemed to be the dining-room, with an enormous chandelier which may not, perhaps, have been of the delicate reticence of a silver candlestick, but whose jags and blobs of ruby and emerald and purple gla.s.s filled their hearts with awe.

"We _will_ get one of these houses!" Father vowed. "I thought you'd like them. I swear, I'll cut out my smoking, if necessary. Say! Got another idea! I wonder if we couldn't make up some excuse and b.u.t.t into the bungalow that's been rented, and see how it looks furnished. I understand there's some new-comers living there. We'll sort of make them a neighborly call."

"Oh, do you think we ought to?"