CHAPTER XVICONTAINING NOTHING BUT HAPPY EXPLANATIONS AND A STILL HAPPIER LOVE SCENE
The hours that followed were given to mutual explanations. Bobby, at great length, related his adventures from the time he was carried away by the breakers to the present moment. Then John Compton gave his version, pointing out that he had done everything to trace up Mrs. Vernon and that from his knowledge of Bobby picked up in the first hour of meeting he had judged that, all things considered, the best way to watch the lad and keep his mind off the sorrows of separation was to engage him in moving-picture work.
“Anyhow,” he said, “before I had quite made up my mind to do it, Bobby settled the question by actually breaking in; and just as soon as I saw him show Chucky Snuff how to do his part, I don’t think I could well have chosen any other way of meeting the situation.”
“And now, mother dear,” said Bobby, “we want you to tell everything about yourself, and don’t leave anything out.”
The eager interest of Bobby and John Compton inspired Barbara to a full and enthralling narrative of her mischances.
“And to think,” mused Compton, “that all this strange series of events should have come about just through the most trivial thing in the world.”
“How’s that, Uncle John?” asked Bobby, nestling in his mother’s arms.
“Why, through a little earth tremor. Of course you, Mrs. Vernon, and you, Bobby, were not used to it; but actually it doesn’t disturb us who live here, especially the native-born, as much as a loud clap of thunder. Three months ago we had an actual thunderstorm here, and there was one flash of lightning and one clap of thunder like the kind that are so common in Cincinnati. Now Father Mallory told me that the children in his school were so frightened that for a moment there was danger of a panic. And I have no doubt that the children who were most frightened were natives and, because they were natives, would have hardly paid any attention to an earth tremor.”
“That is so, Uncle John,” broke in Bobby. “Peggy was at school that day and she told me all about it. She said that when the thunderclap came she screamed at the top of her voice, and started for the door. The Sister got there before her, and blocked her and a dozen other children, and made them go back to their seats.”
“By the way, Bobby,” said Compton, “did you ever think to ask yourself why you were carried out by that wave?”
“They all say it was the undertow.”
“Yes; but in ordinary circumstances it would not have caught you, as you were not far enough out. In my opinion, the sea was affected by the impending earthquake and that wave was not a normal wave.”
“Well, thank God,” said the mother, “that it is all over.”
“And I,” said Compton, “thank God that it all happened. These days with Bobby have been the happiest of my life. And also—they have brought you to my home. And that reminds me; till further notice, Barbara, this suite is yours. Everything has been arranged. I have taken a room across the way. You and Bobby are in command in this suite.”
“And you’ll come in any time at all, won’t you, Uncle John?”
“That reminds me,” said Compton. “Please don’t think I am an Indian giver. But I’m arranging a little party for to-night; and may I use these rooms? Of course you are both to be among those present.”
“Don’t be absurd, John,” laughed Barbara. “These are your rooms. By to-morrow I’ll try and arrange to get a place for myself and Bobby.”
“We’ll see about that,” returned Compton, with a meaning in his words that escaped both his hearers. “To-night, Barbara, we’re going to have Peggy and Pearl and Francis and their mothers.”
“Great!” cried the boy.
“It is to be a special celebration to honor the successful end of our play ‘Imitation.’ By the way, wasn’t it a peculiar coincidence that you should appear just as Bobby finished his part of the scenario?”
“I’m afraid,” returned Mrs. Vernon, “that I’m partly responsible for that coincidence. The man who so kindly let me in to the Lantrey Studio casually informed me that Bobby was engaged in finishing up his part of the picture. I came in, and seeing him working, remained watching and hiding for ten minutes. It occurred to me that if I came upon Bobby while he was working he might not be able to act. So I watched my little boy till all was done.”
“Mother,” said Bobby, “if you had come sooner, you might have ruined that part. I could never do it again that way, because I was thinking of you.”
“But there’s another reason for this little party,” Compton went on. “I want you to meet and to know Bobby’s three pals. I think you will agree with me that I have managed to keep him in really good company. These children are innocent, bright and exceptionally good, and that they are so is due in no small part to their mothers, who are always in attendance, always with them. And that is why I am inviting the mothers, too.”
How John Compton managed all the details of this banquet is one of the secrets of his efficiency. He used the telephone three or four times and the thing was done. After a two hours’ spin along roads so perfect that they are the admiration of Eastern travelers, the three returned and found a table in the sitting-room, laid for a banquet, fragrant with flowers and fruits, and with a caterer in attendance, who announced that everything was ready.
“Very good,” said John, glancing approvingly at the preparations. “Be ready to serve dinner in ten minutes. You’ll excuse me, Barbara; the three children with their mothers are now gathered together and waiting for me at the home of Francis Mason. I’ll have them here in a jiffy.”
Compton was true to his word. Ten minutes later gales of light laughter and happy shouting made known to everybody in the apartment house that Mr. John Compton was receiving friends.
Take a good meal, season it with love and satisfaction over work well done, dash it over with the joy of reunion, and you have a banquet fit for the gods.
The children chattered gayly and, somehow or other, ate very heartily at the same time. Nothing was allowed to interfere with this latter function. But as all for the greater part of the meal spoke and laughed at the same time, it would be impossible, even were it worth while, to reproduce what they said.
Towards the end, when the babbling and laughter were at their loudest, Mr. Compton tapped his glass.
“Excuse me for interrupting all of you,” he said, “but I’m afraid, if you don’t moderate yourselves, that a patrol wagon will drive up and we’ll all be hauled to the station house for disturbing the peace.”
As Mr. Compton smiled and made a comic face the assembled guests, the children especially, raised a tirra-lirra of silvery laughter. One would judge from their enjoyment of it that Mr. Compton had cracked the best joke in the history of the world.
After a full minute, Mr. Compton tapped his glass again.
“It is a pleasure to try being funny before such an appreciative audience. But don’t you think it would be worth while to take turns in talking and not all talk at once?”
Whereupon all present answered together in different phrasings that it certainly would be worth while.
“Very good; then, Mrs. Vernon, it’s your turn.”
Mrs. Vernon promptly said that the voices of the children were music to her ears, and that this was an occasion on which children should be both seen and heard. And so substantially declared the three other happy mothers.
“Well, then, Francis?” adjured Compton.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Francis, rising and bowing, “I am going to tell you the story of my life.”
It was upon this declaration that the grown folks broke into laughter, whereat the little ones wondered where was the joke, anyhow!
“At the age of three years and a half I went into the moving-picture business. Since that time I have starred in five big productions, not counting this one. And the finest time I have had in all my life has been the time that Peggy and Pearl and Bobby have worked with me. In conclusion, I beg to state that I have been married five times.”
The amazed children joined the startled elders in applause and laughter.
“In moving pictures, I mean,” said Francis, and sat down, the orator of the day.
“And now, Pearl?” resumed Compton.
Pearl arose smiling and made her curtsy.
“Encore!” cried everybody, led by Compton.
Pearl was always ready to smile and curtsy. Nothing loath she repeated the performance three times handrunning.
“I want to say,” said Pearl, “that my best love and wishes go to Bobby and his mother. And, Mr. Compton, Peggy has brought her violin along. She thought, perhaps, that some one might ask her to play.”
“Fine!” said Compton. “We’ll not forget that. And now, Peggy, it’s your turn.”
Peggy arose radiant.
“I’ll say what Pearl said,” she declared. “For Bobby and his mother I have heaps of love. And Pearl has brought along her dancing shoes. She told me that some one might ask her to dance.”
“Splendid! We’ll have an entertainment presently. Now, Bobby?”
“I say,” cried Bobby, “that Uncle John is the finest man in the world.”
This speech was the hit of the evening.
“Bobby,” said Compton, brushing away in a comic gesture an imaginary tear—not altogether, imaginary, at that—“you have unmanned me. But now let’s have a little council of war. First of all, our play is finished and you’re all out of a job.”
“It’s really school time, anyhow,” said Francis consolingly. “I’ve never had a regular year at school. How I’d like that!”
“So should I,” said Peggy.
“And I’m old enough to start now,” ended Pearl, “and I think Ma will allow me to go.”
“Upon my word!” exclaimed the host. “This is the first time in all my life that I heard a bunch of children expressing a desire to go to school. Shakespeare has set for all time the picture of the schoolboy with a snail’s pace trudging unwillingly to school.”
“Ah, ah!” said Pearl’s mother. “But Shakespeare never lived in Los Angeles and in the days of the moving picture.”
“True,” assented Compton. “All rules fail in Los Angeles, a city which may rightly be called ‘different.’ I’m glad you are all ready for school. I’ve got good news for you. ‘Imitation’ has brought me in a large sum of money. But I don’t think it is really mine at all. Bobby here, imitating everybody, gave me the first idea—the germ of the story. Then I got to thinking of what sort of people were most likely to imitate. There was just one answer—children. Next I thought of you three, Peggy, Pearl and Francis. After that it was easy to work out the plot. Now, while I am keeping a comfortable sum for myself, I have here in my pocket a check for each one of you calling for fifteen hundred dollars: and that has nothing to do with the salary you draw. I have already spoken to your mothers, and they are all willing for you to take nine months’ vacation from moving-picture work and go to school. The check is intended to pay for your education; and who knows but by next June I’ll have another scenario for just you four!”
There was a moment of wondering silence.
Then Pearl arose, smiling more engagingly than ever.
“Oh, thank you, dear Uncle Compton,” and curtsied deeper than on any former occasion.
Bobby next arose, and with a smile not unlike Pearl’s said:
“Oh, thank you, dear Uncle Compton,” and duplicated the curtsy of Pearl.
Francis and Peggy, wondering what the laughter from the grown folks was all about, each in turn made the selfsame speech in the selfsame way.
Mr. Compton in struggling to keep a straight face while witnessing the new “Imitation” feared for the moment that he was on the point of an apoplectic seizure.
“Suppose we say grace,” he suggested.
Within a few minutes, the table was cleared, everybody taking a hand. The next thing was the entertainment.
“Look here, Mrs. Sansone,” whispered Compton. “Do you and the other women take the children into Bobby’s room and arrange a program. Besides Peggy’s violin playing and Pearl’s dancing, we want Bobby and Francis to do some little stunt, too. Get them ready in fifteen minutes at the least. Meantime, I want to have a word with Mrs. Vernon.”
Presently the two were alone, standing beneath the picture of the guardian angel.
“Barbara, you remember your remarking this morning that you had something to say to me?”
“Distinctly, John. But since that time I have seen and learned so much that I have ever so many things to say to you.”
“But what was it you intended this morning?”
“This, John: when I saw your face on the screen in San Luis Obispo last night, I went back to the years when you and I were so much together. I recalled how I had refused you because I couldn’t bring myself to marry a man who did not believe in God. I think still that I was right in my decision, but I feel that I should have been gentler, more patient. I was young and severe. And last night I felt that, if ever I met you again, I would try to explain how sorry I was not for what I did, but for the way in which I did it.”
“And I,” returned Compton, “have been thinking of you always, indeed, but almost constantly since I picked Bobby up from the roadside, and I’ve recalled bitterly my leaving you as abruptly and in a temper. Every night for the past three weeks I have said over and over again Newman’s ‘Lead, Kindly Light,’ and I have over and over reflected each time in sorrow and, I hope, true contrition on the line, ‘Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.’ Barbara, my father was an infidel and my mother never bothered about religion.”
“I should have considered that,” said Barbara.
“However, that only extenuates my conduct. Now, Barbara, I want to ask you a very serious question. Did you love me in those days?”
“I don’t know, John dear, whether I can make myself plain in answering. I liked you immensely and I was so close to the border line of love that it was only by a strong struggle that I didn’t cross it. Had I yielded to your request that night, love would, I am sure, have come in the yielding.”
“Oh, what a fool I was!” exclaimed Compton. “I was at the gate of Paradise and turned my back on it, and went out into the night; and I have been dwelling in outer darkness since. Barbara, since I left you, I’ve been no good. I have been light, frivolous, irresponsible. My career has amounted to nothing. If God gave me any talents, I have buried them. All this was true till the coming of Bobby. Bobby came and he broughtyouback. Before God, I believe I am a changed man. I have seen the light and to-morrow I will arise and go into my Father’s house. To-morrow I am to be received into the Church, and on Sunday I go to Holy Communion. Of course, I do not know the future. How do I know whether I shall be able to persevere and not go back? But honestly, I believe I am a changed man. I believe and I hope.”
“I have known faith to move mountains,” observed Barbara.
“Now, Barbara, you know how I love your little boy.”
“And more,” assented Barbara, “I know how he loves you.”
“Taking this into consideration, do you think you could possibly love me?”
“John,” said Barbara, holding out her hand to him, “there’s no thinking about it after this wonderful day. I love you with all my heart.”
“Oh, I say,” cried Bobby, a second later, and seeing what he saw suddenly ceased to speak.
“Come here, Bobby,” said Compton, recovering his composure quickly. “I want to ask you a question. What relation are you to me?”
“First,” answered Bobby, “you were my aunt; then you were my grandfather, then you were my nephew. Just at present you are my uncle.”
“And, dear Bobby, how would you like me to be your father?”
Bobby looked at his blushing mother and understood. Catching now one, now the other, he delivered a hearty kiss and a hug to each, then throwing himself flat on the floor, he closed his eyes and said softly but joyously:
“Good night!”
CHAPTER XVIITHE FOUR CHILDREN AROUSE SUSPICION, UNTIL WITH THE MOST MOMENTOUS EVENT IN THIS NARRATIVE, ALL IS MADE CLEAR
“Say, folks,” screamed Bobby, arising and rushing into his own room, “we’re going to have a marriage in our family.”
Then, truly, did pandemonium break loose. There was no need of further explanation: the situation was too clear; one had but to look on Compton and Barbara to know that they were betrothed. The three mothers fell upon Barbara, while the children, who one and all loved the transformed Compton, smothered that embarrassed young gentleman with hugs and kisses.
“Attention!” cried Compton as with kind but firm hands he disengaged himself from the four affectionate aggressors. “Listen, please. Each and every one of you here present is cordially invited to be present at the wedding.”
“When?” cried all.
“Let me see,” and Compton, as he spoke, wrinkled the brow of calculation. “On next Sunday, the banns will be read, also on the second and third Sunday. Then the wedding will follow on some day of that very week. What day shall it be, Barbara?”
“Saturday,” she promptly made answer.
“I don’t want to be critical, Barbara, but why put it to the very end of the week?”
“First, John, Saturday is Our Lady’s day.”
“Good!” said Peggy.
“And secondly, it’s the day when the children are free from school.”
Thereupon the children were by way of initiating a new pandemonium; but the resourceful Compton, bellowing that it was time for the performance, bundled them all out of the room and called for the first number.
Peggy played with taste and feeling. She was of Italian blood, of a race that for art stands, I believe, first and foremost in the modern world; and her art went into her graceful fingers and returned in the sweet notes that rippled from her bow. Francis recited and, of course, acquitted himself to the taste of every one present. Pearl’s dance, under the circumstances, was an incarnation of spring—a spring of smiles and youth and fragrant innocence. Then arose Bobby and brought the spectators out of fairyland.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “I will now give you a correct picture of Uncle John when he is shaving himself.”
Standing without any properties of any sort, Bobby dipped an imaginary brush in imperceptible water, rubbed his face, and then lathered himself with invisible soap. Next he honed an unseen razor upon a similar strop, and proceeded to go through the motions of shaving. To such an extent did he succeed in reproducing the faces Compton was wont to make, that the victim of all this fun lost two buttons from his vest, both of them flying off when Bobby went through the motions of cutting himself.
“That settles it,” said Compton, when Bobby had ended his performance with a caricature of Pearl’s curtsy. “We’ve had enough for to-night. The hour is early—it’s only ten—but to-morrow I am to be received into the Catholic Church, and I think I ought to have a little solitude.”
“Are you going to shave?” asked Francis.
“Why?” asked Compton, restraining himself lest he should loose another button.
“If you were,” answered the youth, “I should like to look on.”
Thereupon the happy party broke up.
“Good night, dear,” said Compton to Barbara, when all had left the room, including Bobby, who had graciously accompanied the departing guests to the street. “Aren’t they a wonderful set of children?”
“They show to some degree what God originally intended us all to be,” said Barbara.
“What a pity that they must all grow up!” said the happy man.
“Is it possible,” asked John Compton two weeks later, “that our four children are getting worldly-minded?”
“I hope not, John,” answered Barbara.
It was a lovely afternoon. The two were seated in Compton’s former suite, which, since the engagement, had remained Barbara’s and Bobby’s temporary home.
“Well, they show such an unusual interest in our wedding clothes,” Compton went on, “that I do not know what to make of it. Every time I go to my tailor, I discover Bobby and Francis either with him or hovering about the neighborhood, and they always look guilty when I come upon them. Once Peggy and Pearl were there, too. I asked the tailor what it all meant, and he laughed and answered that the children were very much interested in my bridal garments. I don’t like to see children of their age making such a fuss about styles.”
“Now that you bring the subject up,” said Barbara, “I recall that Peggy and Pearl every time they come here—and there’s not a day that they don’t—ask to see my trousseau, and show an interest that I cannot account for. They ask all sorts of questions.”
“There’s another thing,” resumed Compton. “Several times I have caught the four of them discussing something or other with intense earnestness; but no sooner am I seen than they grow embarrassed and drop their engrossing subject. For all that, they are, in every other respect, so lovely, they’re all studying so well, that I can’t bring myself to think they are getting worldly.”
“And besides, John, Bobby and Peggy and Francis go to communion every day. Not only that, but they make a longer thanksgiving than most grown people. They are the last to leave the church; so I can’t imagine anything wrong about them. And sweet little Pearl, who reminds me of the Peri at the gate of Paradise, not exactly disconsolate, but wistful, comes every morning with them, and says her little prayers with all the reverence and devotion of childish love and innocence.”
“My idea of Paradise,” John meditated, “is a place like Los Angeles, with beautiful smooth-shaven, green lawns thrown in—flowers and foliage and sunshine to remain ‘as you were.’ But the inhabitants of this Paradise are to be all children in their innocence, unalloyed by the little failings which go to show that they are descended from Adam, and who are never, never to grow up.”
Then in a body entered the little four, who, after a cordial interchange of greetings, timidly begged to see the bridal dress.
The betrothed pair looked at each other. They were mystified.
“Say, Uncle John,” said Bobby, who, with Francis, quickly lost interest in the modiste’s “Creation,” “is it true that you’ve been promoted?”
“I’ve been made a Director for the Lantry Studio, if that’s what you mean, Bobby, and they have accepted my new scenario at a price bigger than what they paid for ‘Imitation.’ ”
“You’re going to be rich, uncle.”
“I don’t know about that. But whether I’m rich or not, you are provided for, my dear. At least, putting together the money you have earned this summer with what I have added to it, and turning it into Liberty Bonds, which I have been able to buy up at a price yielding six per cent on the investment, the income will yield enough to carry you through your school-days, and when you are done with classes, the principal will be intact and enough to give you a fair start in life.”
“But,” objected Bobby, “I thought the money I earned was going to Mama to help her pay off that debt.”
“You needn’t worry about that, Bobby,” exclaimed Mr. Compton. “Yesterday your mother sent a check canceling the entire obligation. She wasn’t as poor as we imagined.”
“And then, John,” put in Barbara, “when you gave me—”
But Compton smiling amiably put his hand over her mouth.
The two girls were still studying the dress.
“Can it be vanity?” the two asked themselves.
All they could do was to suspend judgment.
It was Saturday morning, brighter, more fragrant, more Paradise-like than any morning, so John and Barbara averred, in the golden weather history of Los Angeles. The wedding was over, the most notable wedding ever held in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. The moving-picture world was there, the moving-picture world, and his wife and daughters, and, to a surprising extent, his sons. The church, a bower of beauty, was filled. All was over, and the happy couple, preceded by a flower girl, no other than Agnes Regan, by the best man, Mr. J. Heneman, and supporting the weeping bridesmaid, Bernadette Vivian, were moving in stately fashion down the aisle. As they left the vestibule, there were, thank goodness, no showers of rice and other idiotic performances, idiotic, because out of place at the church. Nevertheless, there was another form of demonstration. Two camera men from the Lantry Studio were on hand with their moving-picture cameras, and with them Ben Moore, the head of the Scenario Department.
“Stop where you are,” commanded Ben. “We’re going to take you.”
“Don’t object, my own,” whispered Compton. “We really owe it to the Lantry people.—Go on, Ben, and tell us what to do.”
“By the way,” continued the groom, “what on earth has become of the little four? I haven’t seen or heard of them all the morning.”
“They told me they had permission to go up in the choir loft,” answered Mrs. Compton. “Bobby left at six, one hour and three-quarters before we started for church. He had something on his mind.—Well, Ben, why don’t you go on and shoot?”
“Wait,” said Ben severely.
The groom and bride were standing before the main door of the church, with the best man and bridesmaid next them on their proper sides.
“Move back, you two men to one side, and you two women to the other to give place to the procession. Now, boys, shoot,” commanded Ben.
As the bridal party obeyed Moore’s curt injunctions, there issued forth from the church, Bobby, dressed in every detail like Compton; on his arm, Peggy, arrayed like Mrs. Compton. Behind them, came Francis, another Heneman, his arm supporting Pearl, an improved replica of the fair Bernadette Vivian.
“By George,” cried Compton, never for a moment thinking of the cameras now in operation. “This explains the whole thing.—The little monkeys!”
The young mischief-makers, well out of the church, placed themselves in front of the real bridal group, in front of their respective replicas. Four innocent faces then broke into smiles, while their owners made Pearl’s famous curtsy to an imaginary audience.
Upon this, Bobby turned and presenting a rose to Compton, said:
“ ‘Imitation.’ ”
“Is,” announced Peggy, presenting the flower to Barbara.
“The Sincerest,” added Francis, with a rose for Heneman.
“Flattery,” ended Pearl, addressing the fair Bernadette.
Then Compton caught Bobby in his arms; and Barbara caught Peggy in her arms; and Heneman caught Francis in his arms; and Bernadette caught Pearl in her arms; while the cameras clicked furiously, until they stopped, and Ben Moore announced that, without rehearsal, they had shot the finest thing ever seen in any moving picture.
THE END.PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK
THE END.
PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.
[The end ofBobby in Movielandby Francis J. Finn]