Tracy Park Part 38

A bouquet from d.i.c.k St. Claire and Fred Raymond, a basket from her brother, and one more from _herself_, were all, and the little red-haired girl, who, with her heavy gold chain and locket, and diamond ear-rings, and three bracelets, and five finger-rings, had looked like a jeweller's shop, felt aggrieved and neglected, and Jerrie found her sobbing in her room as if her heart was broken.

'Only four snipping things,' she said, 'and you had twenty-five, and mother will be so disappointed, and father too, when he knows just how few I got. I wish I was popular like you.'

'Never mind,' Jerrie said, cheerfully. 'It was only a happen so--my getting so many. You are just as nice as I am, and I'll give you part of mine to take home to your mother. I can never carry them all. I should have to charter a car,' and in a few moments six of Jerrie's baskets were transferred to Ann Eliza's room, including Tom Tracy's book.

'Oh, I can't take that, Ann Eliza said; he didn't mean it for me; he didn't give me anything, and I--I--'

Here she began to sob again, and laying her hand pityingly upon the bowed head, Jerrie said:

'Yes, I know; I understand. Something from Tom Tracy would have pleased you more than from anyone; but listen to me, Annie. Tom is not worth your tears.'

'Don't you care for him?' the girl asked, lifting her head suddenly.

'Not a particle, as you mean. You have nothing to fear from me,' Jerrie replied.

This was a grain of comfort to the girl who had been weak enough to waste her affections upon Tom Tracy, and who, fearing Jerrie was a rival, was weak enough to hope that with her out of the way she might eventually succeed in bringing him to her feet, for she knew his fondness for money, and knew, too, that she should in all probability be one day the heiress to a million. So great was her infatuation for the man who had never shown her the slightest attention, that even his flowers, though second-hand, and not intended for her, were everything to her, and when she packed her trunk that night she put them carefully away in many wrappings of paper, to be brought out at home in the privacy of her own room, and kept as long as the least beauty or perfume remained.

It was a merry party which the New York train carried to Shannondale the next day, and Jerrie was the merriest and gayest of them all, bandying jokes and jests, and coquetting pretty equally with the young men, until neither Tom, nor d.i.c.k, nor Billy quite knew what he was doing or saying.

But always in her gayest moods, when her eyes were brightest and her wit the keenest, there was in Jerrie's heart a thought of Harold, who had so disappointed her, and a wonder as to the nature of the _job_ which had been of sufficient importance to keep him from Va.s.sar.

'Shingling a roof, and Maude is helping him,' Billy said, 'I wonder what he meant?' she was thinking, when she heard Ann Eliza cry out, that the towers of 'Le Bateau' were visible.

As she had not seen that wonderful structure since its completion, she arose from her seat, and going to the window, looked out upon the ma.s.sive pile in the distance, looking, with its turrets, and towers, and round projections, like some old castle rather than a home where people could live and be happy.

'It is very grand,' she said to Ann Eliza; and Billy, who was leaning toward her, replied:

'Yes, too grand for a Pe-Peterkin. It wants you, there, Jerrie, as its m-m-master-p-p-piece, and, by Jove, you can b-be there, too, if you will!'

No one heard this attempt at an offer but Jerrie, who, with a saucy toss of the head, replied, laughingly:

'Thank you, Billy. I'll think of it, and let you know when I make up my mind to come. Just now I prefer the cottage in the lane to any spot on earth. Oh, here, we are at the station,' she cried, as the train shot round a curve and Shannondale was reached.

There was a scrambling for bundles, and flowers, and wraps. Fred Raymond gathering up Nina's, while d.i.c.k, and Tom, and Billy, almost fought over Jerrie's, and poor little Ann Eliza would have carried hers alone if Jerrie had not helped her.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN SHANNONDALE.

Nine years of change in Shannondale, and the green hill-side, which stretched from the common down to the river where, when our story opened, sheep and cows were feeding in the pasture land, is thickly covered with houses of every kind of architecture, from the Mansard roof to the Queen Anne style, just coming into fashion, while the meadow lands are dotted over with the small houses of the men who work in the large furnace, or manufactory, which Peterkin had bought and enlarged, as a monument, he said, and where he sometimes employed as many as four hundred men, and had set up a whistle which could be heard for miles and miles, and nearly blew off the chimney-tops when it sounded in the morning at six o'clock, it was so loud and shrill. A screecher, Peterkin called it, and he always listened with a smile of pride and satisfaction on his face when he heard the first indications of its blowing, and knew that four hundred men were quickening their stops on account of it, lest they should be a few minutes late and have their wages docked.

Peterkin counted two millions now, and boasted the finest, or at least, the most expensive house in the county, not even excepting Tracy Park, which still held its own for solidity and old-fashioned dignity, and was the show place to the strangers visiting in Shannondale.

When Peterkin made $20,000 in one day from some speculation in stocks, he said to Mr. St. Claire, who was now a judge, and with whom he pretended to be on terms of great familiarity:

'I say, judge, I'm goin' to build a buster, and whip the crowd. I've lived about long enough in that little nine-by-ten hole, and I'll be dumbed if I don't show 'em what I can do. I'll have towers, and bay-windows, and piazzers, with checkered work all 'round 'em, and a preservatory, and all kinds of new fangled doin's. May Jane and Ann 'Liza want that Queen Anny style, but I tell 'em no such squatty things for me. They can have all the little winder panes and stained gla.s.s, cart loads on't, if they want; but I'll have the rooms big and high, so a feller won't b.u.mp his head. Yes, _sir_! I'm in for a smasher!'

And he built 'a smasher' on the site of the old house, behind which the 'Liza Ann,' or what there was left of it, was lying; and when the house was done, and furnished with the most gaudy and expensive furniture he could find in Boston and New York, he said it had just as good a right to a name as any body. There was Tracy Park, and Gra.s.sy Springs, and Brier Hill, and Collingwood, and he'd be dumbed if he'd be outdone by any of 'em.

'He'd like to call it 'Liza Ann,' he said to Arthur, whom he met one day in the park, and to whom he began to talk of his new house. 'He'd like to call it 'Liza Ann, after the old boat, for that craft was the beginnin' of his bein' any body; but May Jane and Ann 'Liza wouldn't hear to it. They wanted some new-frangled foreign name; could Mr. Tracy suggest something?'

'How would "_Le Bateau_" do? It is the French for "the boat," and might cover your difficulty,' Arthur said, without a thought that his suggestion would be adopted.

But it was, immediately.

'That's jest the checker. 'Liza Ann with a new name, _Lub--lub_--what d'ye call her?' Peterkin said, and Arthur replied:

'_Le Bateau_.'

'Yes, yes--_Lubber-toe_; that'll suit May Jane tip-top. Beats all what high notions she's got! Why, I don't s'pose she any more remembers that she used to wash Miss Atherton's stun steps than you remember somethin'

that never happened. Do you?'

Arthur thought very likely that she did not, and Peterkin went on:

'You say it means a boat in French; _ca.n.a.l_, do you s'pose?'

Arthur did not think it mattered what boat, and Peterkin continued:

'_Lubber-toe_! Sounds droll, but I like it, I'll see an engraver to-day but how do you spell the plaguy thing!'

Arthur wrote it on a slip of paper, which he handed Peterkin, who began slowly:

_L-e le, b-a-t-bat; le-bat_. Why, what in thunder! That ain't _Lubbertoe_. 'Tain't nothin'!'

With an amused smile Arthur explained that the p.r.o.nunciation of French words had very little to do with the way they were spelled; then, very carefully p.r.o.nouncing the name several times, and making Peterkin repeat it after him, he said good-bye, and walked away, thinking to himself:

'There are bigger lunatics outside the asylum than I am, but it is not possible the fool will adopt that name.'

But the fool did. May Jane approved, and Billy did not care, provided his father would p.r.o.nounce it right, and so in less than a week, '_Le Bateau_' was on Peterkin's door-plate, and on the two gate-posts of the entrance to his grounds, and May Jane's visiting cards bore the words:

'Mrs. Peterkin. Le Bateau. Fridays.'

She had her _days_ now, like Mrs. Atherton, and Mrs. St. Claire, and Mrs. Tracy, and had her butler, too, and her maid, and her carriage; and after the house was furnished, and furnished in style which reminded one of a theatre, it was so gorgeous and gay, Peterkin concluded to have a _coat of arms_ for his carriage; and remembering how Arthur had helped him in a former dilemma he sought him again and told him his trouble.

'That _Lubber-too_ (he called it _too_ now) 'went down like hot cakes, and was just the thing,' he said, 'and now I want some picter for my carriage door to kinder mark me, and show who I am. You know what I mean.'

Arthur thought a _puff-ball_ would represent Peterkin better than anything else, but he replied:

'Yes, I know. You want a coat of arms, which shall suggest your early days--'

'When I was a flounderin' to get up--jess so,' Peterkin interrupted him.

'You've hit it, square. Now I'd like a picter of the Lizy Ann, as she was, but May Jane won't hear to't. What do you say, square?'

Arthur tingled to his finger tips at this familiarity from a man whom he detested, and whom he would like to turn from his door, but the man was in his house and in his private room, tilting back in a delicate Swiss chair, which Arthur expected every moment to see broken to pieces, and which finally did go down with a crash as the burly figure settled itself a little more firmly upon the frail thing.

'I'll be dumbed if I hain't, broke it all to shivers!' the terrified Peterkin exclaimed, as he struggled to his feet, and looked with dismay upon the _debris_. 'What's the damage?' he continued, taking out his pocket-book and ostentatiously showing a fifty-dollar bill.