"For I must love some one,And it may as well be you."
The refrain haunted him. Had the time come when even he would have to descend?
SUNDAY was a nerve-racking problem in days when the New England tradition still held. There was no fishing, no tennis, no baseball, and no golf. Picnics were taboo. There was of course a large amount of eating to be done, but after fish-balls, griddle cakes, and pork and beans for breakfast, a heavy sermon, and a heavier roast beef for dinner, the long afternoon had to be lived through in a sort of penitential expiation. One dozen fed-to-bursting, painfully primped young human colts, ranging from fifteen to seventeen years of age, gathered in the Gutter Pup's barn and mournfully debated the eternal question of what to do.
"It's too cold to sneak up to the old swimming hole," said Tacks disconsolately.
"Why not have a few rounds with the mitts?" said the Gutter Pup eagerly.
"In these duds?" said Happy Mather, who preferred to stand because when he sat down the Sunday collar pinched his throat. "Nothing doing! Thank you, but my governer's hand is still strong!"
"We might organize a Browning Society," said Puffy Ellis, who came from Boston.
"Bright boy!"
"Oh, well, since we 're all dressed up and nowhere to go, we might as well do the society racket and call on the sweet things."
"Girls!" said Skippy, sarcastically. "My aunt's cat's pants! Joe, what's got into you! You used to be human last summer. Girls! Girls! I vote we all go out and pick a bunch of dandelions for Joe Crocker to carry round."
"Hold up," said the Gutter Pup. "You give me an idea."
"If it's got anything to do with skirts," said Skippy, "au revoir and likewise good-by. I resign."
"Shut up! When Razzle-dazzle starts to think, give him a chance," said Happy Mather. "Who asked your opinion? You're nothing but a tadpole, anyhow."
"Well, what's the idea?" said Tacks.
"It's a good one," said the Gutter Pup slowly. "It's a gag we used to pull off in the old Murray Hill Gang, the winter I put Spider Martin away in seven rounds. Spider was no great shakes with the mitts but he had some bright ideas. This is one of them. How many are we?"
"Twelve."
"Just right. Only it's got to be played dead serious, no horseplay, kiddin', or rough stuff."
Just half an hour later Miss Connie Brown, aged sixteen, who was yawning over a novel onthe chaise-loungeof her bedroom, was electrified into action by the announcement that two gentlemen callers were waiting for her in the parlor. Miss Connie was in excellent health, weighing one hundred and sixty pounds, rather freckled, and quite accustomed to watch her girl friends enjoying themselves in the ballroom. She bounded down the stairs and arrived, slightly out of breath, to find the Gutter Pup and Skippy stiffly erect.
"Allow me to present my friend, Mr. Bedelle!" said the Gutter Pup in the correct tones of an undertaker.
Miss Connie shook hands vigorously and said, beaming with surprised delight:
"I think it's just too darling of you to drop in. Every one's out and I was trying to read a poky old book. We'll have tea and there's some chocolate cake left. Course I know your sister, Mr. Bedelle. I think she's just the dandiest girl."
"I hope your father and mother are well," said Skippy gravely.
"What? Oh, yes! They're all right. Let's be cozy and camp down over here."
"And your sister?" said the Gutter Pup with equal punctiliousness.
"Sis? Oh, she's fine and dandy," said Miss Connie, curling up on the sofa, after lighting the lamp under the tea kettle.
Skippy and the Gutter Pup after this irreproachablebeginning, sat up stiffly and, retiring into a set silence, stared very hard at their hostess.
"You'll have a bit of chocolate cake, won't you?" said the young lady, wondering how to open the conversation.
"Thank you."
"And you, Mr. Bedelle?"
"Thank you."
At this moment the bell rang and the maid announced:
"Mr. Mather and Mr. Crocker callin' on you, Miss Connie."
Miss Brown could not believe her ears. Such a thing had never happened before, even in her happiest dreams. If her sister could only see her now! She gave a hurried calculating glance at the chocolate cake and went joyfully more than halfway to meet the new arrivals. The four conspirators, after formal greetings, ranged themselves in a semicircle, stiffly balanced on the edges of their chairs, hands on their knees, and waited for their hostess to play with the conversation.
"Did you see Maude Adams in her new piece this spring?" said Miss Connie, who began to fidget with the cups and carefully cut the cake into five exact divisions.
As this question was addressed to the company in general, the four visitors maintained a frozen attention.
"I'm just crazy about Maude Adams. I went three times," said Miss Connie, who found that five teacups choked up the table in the most disconcerting way. "You like Maude Adams, don't you—er—Mr. Mather?"
"I like Maude Adams."
"And you, Mr. Brooker?"
"I like Maude Adams."
Miss Connie was staring at the teapot desperately, seeking for some new topic of conversation, when again the bell rang and two more callers were announced. Miss Connie's Cinderella-like enthusiasm gave way to a feeling of panic. She whispered hoarsely to the maid to bring two more cups and surreptitiously made a new allotment of the chocolate cake. The new arrivals inquired solemnly after the health of Miss Connie's mother, father and sister, and then joined the expectant silence. When the young lady in turn had discovered that the new callers liked Maude Adams, all mental processes came to an end and the sound of the clock from the mantel fell like the blows of a hammer in the room.
When the fourth relay arrived, her complexion took on a bright red tinge and her agitation was such that she poured the cream into the cake and broke two cups.
"Did you see her!" said the Gutter Pup ecstatically, after they had allowed the pent-up hilarity to die out behind the sheltering hedge."Skippy, old top, when that last bunch arrived, I thought she certainly was going down for the count."
"Her eyes were jumping and she was breathing like a horse."
"Well, how do you like the idea?"
"Best Sunday afternoon I ever spent."
"Where away now?"
"I'd like to work it on Tootsie."
"Hold up—my sister needs it more than yours."
The point was debated and as no decision could be reached it was decided to keep to the regular program. The afternoon was a huge success from the point of view of the male phalanx. The destruction was enormous. One or two young ladies held out until the fifth relay but almost collapsed at the fourth.
"'Course they'll all get together to-morrow and have it in for us," said the Gutter Pup, chortling. "But never mind, it was worth it. Did you ever see anything as idiotically solemn as Tacks Brooker? When he arrives they certainly throw up the sponge."
"Have we time for another?"
"Sure, it's only a quarter of six. We'll put this one over hard, for she certainly needs taking down."
"Who?"
"Dolly Travers. Don't know her? You will."
Miss Dolly Travers received them with the manner of a Dresden shepherdess just stepping from the mantelpiece and Skippy took the petite hand gingerly, as though afraid that anything so delicate and brittle would break at the touch. The voice of his brother's worldly wisdom seemed to sound in his ears:
"Pick out something young and grateful. Be a hero."
Miss Travers was undeniably young, if artful, and moreover she was not of the dark and deceptive class of brunettes, but a blonde, with eyes as open and guileless as the blue of the June day. She had solved the problem of the classification which as naturally marks the feminine progress as long trousers indicates the man, by bobbing her hair; and, though the subterfuge seemed to afford much amusement to certain of her sex, it immediately separated her from the pigtails.
There was something about her that appealed instantly to Skippy and inspired confidence, something cool and dainty and at ease. She did not express either surprise or excessive delight at their entrance. There was something simple and frank about everything she did. He appreciated it and fell to wishing that Tootsie would be more like her, less coquettish and more of a good comrade.
"Well, what do you know?" said Dolly, looking at the Gutter Pup.
"Nothing."
"I hope your mother and father are well," said Skippy, true to the formula.
"Gracious! Are you trying to make conversation?" said Dolly, beginning to laugh, "Don't sit on the edge of your chairs, boys, like monkeys on a stick; sit back and be comfortable."
Happy Mather and Tacks appeared with gloomy ceremony.
"Is this the first time you ever paid a call?" said the young lady when Happy had opened the question of the family health. "What is the matter with you boys? You look too ridiculous for words; sit back, stick your hands in your pockets, and look natural."
Again the bell rang and the sounds of the third relay were heard in the hall. Miss Dolly glanced quickly at the four solemnities and then suspiciously out of the window where relays four and five were lurking under the trees, suppressed a smile, and came to a sudden decision.
"My mother and father are in perfect health, my sister is in perfect health, how are yours?" she said, as Puffy Ellis started to clear his throat. "No, no, don't sit down. You're much too imposing. Mr. Crocker, you take one side of the fireplace and Mr. Ellis the other, and please don't look so gawky. You aren't really afraid of one little girl, are you? And by theway, Charlie Lazelle, go out on the porch and call in the others."
"Others?" said the Gutter Pup, trying to save the day by his cat-and-cream expression.
"The others who are hiding under the willow," said Dolly lightly. "Hurry up, because it's six o'clock and Daddy will be back any moment. He's such a bear about the boys I go with. It's a marvelous chance for him to look you over. Joe Crocker, sit down at the piano."
"On Sunday?" said Joe, startled out of his attitude.
"Don't worry, we're not going to dance. We're going to make a good impression on father."
When Mr. Travers drew up ten minutes later he beheld eleven sheepish young gentlemen huddled in a circle in the middle of the parlor intoning from hymnbooks the measures which Joe Crocker pounded out from the piano under the solemn inspection of Miss Dolly Travers.
"Great heavens! What's this?" said Mr. Travers, who was the most unorthodox of men. "What in mischief are you up to now?"
"It's my Sunday School class," said the young lady, with difficult seriousness. "We're meeting every week. It won't annoy you too much, will it, father?"
THE first dance of the summer took place the following Saturday, and the entire feminine contingent immediately declared war on Miss Dolly Travers, who entered escorted by four cavaliers and subdivided each dance.
While others more fortunately endowed with rhythmic feet swayed and circled about the ballroom with the little Dresden china blonde, Skippy, who guarded in his arms a pink and white filmy scarf, glowered across the vacant chair at Puffy Ellis, who had been favored with the safekeeping of the favorite's fan.
"Jack, you're perfectly ridiculous," said Sister Clara, who did not relish the competition. "The idea of making a fool of yourself over a child of twelve that ought to be in bed long ago. Haven't you any pride?"
"Kitty, kitty," said Skippy softly. He could not be bothered with such things as sisters. His mind was made up. He glared over at Puffy and said to himself: "To-night I'll give him his choice. Either he gets off the horizon, or I tear the hide off him."
He would protect his rights in the good old-fashioned way, even if he had to thrash a dozen of them!
"Why, Jack!" said Dolly, whirling up at this moment, and sinking back into the scarf which he hurriedly draped about her. "You look like blood and thunder. You're not jealous, are you?"
"Oh, no!"
"Well then?"
"Why did you give Puffy Ellis that fan?"
"Poor Puffy! He doesn't dance, either."
"Lord, I'll dance by next Saturday," said Skippy miserably, "or break a leg."
"Foolish boy, of course you must dance! If I sit this out with you, will it make you feel any better?"
"Will it!"
"We'll go on the porch and you'll try a one-step. Oh, no one will see. Gracious! Don't look so terrified."
Skippy's answer was something between a gulp and a gurgle.
"Don't you wantmeto teach you?" said Dolly in the velvetiest voice in the world.
"I'll try; I'll try anything you say," he said, breathing hard, "only I say, Dolly, remember a cart-horse has done more dancing than I ever have."
"The two-step is frightfully easy—you'll see," said the young lady when they had reached the dark end of the piazza. "It's just one-two to music. Put your arm around me!"
"What?"
"You goose! How can you dance if you don't?" said Dolly in a cool professional manner. "Take my hand. So! Now just walk in rhythm."
When Skippy for the first time in his life had actually closed his arm around a feminine waist and clutched at the outstretched hand, he had a sensation of terrifying dizziness, such as had once overcome him when on a dare he had poised himself thirty feet in the air for his first high dive.
"Begin! One, two, left foot, to the music!"
Skippy blindly and obediently began to walk. He walked all over the little feet. He walked on his own. He walked into a chair and ricocheted from a table with a bump that bounced them off the railing.
"That's enough!" said Dolly in a slightly discouraged voice. "Gracious! You mustn't grab me like that. You're not drowning."
"Drowning's nothing to this," said Skippy, rubbing his forehead. "You see it's hopeless."
"Of course it isn't hopeless. If that great big lummox of a Tacks Brooker can dance aren't you ashamed of yourself to give up like that?"
"I'll never dance another step," said Skippy sulkily.
"The idea, Jack Bedelle! I want you to dance, and dance you shall!" said Dolly, stamping her foot. "Do you understand?"
He balanced carefully, stretched out one arm to encircle an imaginary waist. Page 172He balanced carefully, stretched out one arm to encircle an imaginary waist. Page 172
"Don't rub it in, Dolly."
"Foolish boy!" said the young lady, squeezing his arm. "Do you think I want to dance all summer long withothermen?"
Three-quarters of an hour later Skippy again, but alone, reached the protecting shadows. Again the orchestra was beating out an exhilarating measure.
"You bet I'm not going to let her dance with other men," he said under his breath. He balanced carefully, stretched out one arm to encircle an imaginary waist and started heavily to tread the illusive measure. Suddenly he realized that he was not alone. Farther down a couple were swaying in the shadows. Then Dolly's voice reached him.
"The idea! Puffy, of course you can dance. If Jack Bedelle can learn, you ought to be ashamed to give up."
"Skippy dance!"
"Of course, foolish boy! Do you want to sit and watch him dance with meallsummer?"
That evening after he had escorted the triumphant Dolly Travers home in company of four other victims, Skippy went heavily upward to his room.
"Hello there!" said the big brother from his bed.
"Hello, Sambo," said Skippy, slinking in disconsolately.
"What's the matter, bub? You look like aplucked chicken. You've been moping around for a week. What is the matter with you anyhow?"
"What is the matter?" said Skippy, staring at him.
"Exactly, what is the matter?"
"The matter is, I took your advice," said Skippy reproachfully. "You told me to pick out something young and easy."
"Well?"
"Well, I did it," said Skippy, who then, without noticing Mr. Sam's growing interest, began to unburden himself.
Three days later, about five in the afternoon, Skippy emerged from behind the Gutter Pup's barn, leaving Mr. Puffy Ellis to readjust himself with more painful leisure. Skippy was somewhat bruised himself, and his clothes were a sight to behold, but he was happy. Mr. Puffy Ellis had finally seen the light and one obstacle at least had been removed from the summer.
"I may not be much shakes on my feet as yet," said Skippy to himself grimly, "but thank the Lord I can use my fists." He remembered certain gorgeous passages in "The Count of Monte Cristo" and, thinking of what still remained to be done, said tragically, "So much forone!"
Suddenly, in front of the Travers home, he beheld a buckboard draw up, and as with risinganger he pressed forward for a view of the next rival, Miss Dolly Travers tripped down, gave her hand delightedly, and sprang to the seat.
Another rival, another Puffy Ellis to crush! Unmindful of anything but his consuming jealousy, he strode forward, fists doubled and glowering. The next moment the carriage had swung up and passed him. Miss Dolly Travers, blissfully entranced with her new conquest, had not even noticed him, standing there humbly in the road! But worse than that—oh, perfidy of perfidies—at the reins was no other than the great man of the university, his brother Mr. Sambones Bedelle!
TOOTSIE BEDELLE, in the days following the opening of the summer season at Gates Harbor, was considerably mystified by the actions of the family phonograph. Now while a talking machine is admittedly endowed with one human attribute, it is supposed to be a talking and not a walking machine. Yet unless it were endowed with motive power, how explain the sudden oddities of its appearances and disappearances?
The evening after the first hop at the club, Tootsie broke upon the family dinner table with the frantic announcement:
"The phonograph's gone! Stolen!"
"Stolen!" said Skippy incredulously.
"Stolen!" said Mr. Bedelle with his eat 'em alive expression.
"Why it was there this morning," said Clara.
"Well, it's not there now and it wasn't there this afternoon!"
The entire Bedelle family broke for the parlor. There in its accustomed corner was the phonograph. When quiet had been restored Tootsie again announced.
"It wasnotthere this afternoon!"
"Who was there, Tootsie dear?" said Clara maliciously.
Tootsie's reply woke up Mr. Bedelle, who considered himself a nervous dyspeptic and, being already in a state of antidigestive excitation, glowered and imposed silence on the entire younger generation.
"Well, it'smyphonograph, anyhow!" said Tootsie sulkily, and dinner over she hastened to the parlor. The phonograph was still there. She went to bed a little shaken in her convictions. But the next morning, returning early from the beach, she happened to glance into the parlor. The phonograph had disappeared again! Tootsie could not believe her eyes. She advanced cautiously and felt with both hands, but her groping fingers encountered nothing but thin air. Then she searched behind the curtains, moved the furniture and opened all the hall closets. There was no question about it this time, the phonograph certainly had vanished from the house!
Half an hour later, as Mr. and Mrs. Bedelle were sauntering back from the morning plunge, the frantic figure of Miss Tootsie came flying down the road.
"Good gracious, Tootsie! Whathashappened?" exclaimed Mrs. Bedelle, trying to remember whether the dioxygen and the bandages had been unpacked.
"It's gone!"
"Gone? What, who, where?"
"The phonograph's gone again."
"Now Tootsie," said Mr. Bedelle, elevating a cautionary finger.
"Don't agitate yourself, John," said Mrs. Bedelle.
"Father, it is gone! I saw it!"
"Saw it?"
"I mean I saw it wasn't there and I searched everywhere. I saw it with my own eyes," said Tootsie incoherently, and between rage and tears she repeated her account in a manner to be completely unintelligible. Mr. Bedelle was a theorist afflicted with indigestion. He carefully selected his diet with due regard for starch values and never ate a raw tomato without first carefully removing the seeds. He was likewise particularly careful never to sit down to a process of digestion in an agitated mood. His irritation therefore considerably aggravated by his daughter's case of nerves, he hastened on to the house.
"I looked everywhere, Daddy, honest I did and it—" Suddenly Tootsie stopped and her jaw fell. There in its accustomed place, reposing on the table, was the phonograph.
"Tootsie!" said Mr. Bedelle in puffy rage.
"Yes, Daddy."
"Go to that machine. Put your hand on it. Feel it. Is it or is it not a phonograph?"
"It is."
"Is it yours?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Write out fifty times 'I must not get excited before mealtime,' Don't leave the house until you have done it."
"Very well, Daddy."
Mr. Bedelle went to his easy-chair on the back porch and began to fan himself. Tootsie, staring at the phonograph, began seriously to consider. Her suspicions were aroused and her first suspicion was the instinctive one of sister to sister.
"Good gracious! I believe the child thinks I did it," said Clara, at luncheon, after Tootsie's stare had remained in fixed accusation upon her.
"Not a word! Not another word about that phonograph," said Mr. Bedelle wrathfully, "If this whole family has got to be upset every time I sit down to the table, I will have the whole thing made into mincemeat."
"Well, it's my phonograph," said Tootsie sullenly, and immediately departed for her room—by request.
For two days the phonograph remained quiescent, but about this time Miss Clara Bedelle announced that some one had been tampering with her figure.
"Your figure, Clara? How shocking!" said the older brother.
"My dressmaker's figure, and what's more,some one," said Clara, looking hard at Tootsie, "Some onehas been in my closet and disturbed my dresses!"
"Howverystrange," said Tootsie sarcastically. "Are you sure it isn't your imagination—child?"
"And I know who did it."
"Perhaps you know, too, who stole my phonograph," said Tootsie angrily.
The next afternoon the phonograph departed for four hours. Tootsie searched her sister's bedroom and then called Skippy into consultation.
"It's Clara all right," said Skippy. "We must set a watch on her."
"She has a mean and spiteful nature. She does it just to get me punished."
"Leave it to me."
"What will you do?"
"Say, what's it worth?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do I get if I catch her red hot?"
"I'll give a dollar," said Tootsie recklessly.
"That's too much," said Skippy, with an appearance of generosity. "I'll sleuth for a quarter a day. Cash in advance. But my orders go. Savvy?"
Tootsie paid down the fee, and following instructions departed next morning with the family for the beach, while Skippy, returning across lots, wriggled on his stomach over thelawn and slipped into the house by the cellar window. For three days Tootsie duly paid out her quarter and received the most comforting of reports. On the fourth day, however, a discussion arose.
"'Course if you sit there, no one's goin' to come," she said, fingering her last quarter. "I know it's Clara by the look in her eyes."
"Sit there! What kind of a sleuth do you think I am?" he said indignantly. "Look here. See that phonograph—see anything queer about it? Pick it up."
Instantly the grating sounds of a dinner bell were heard and a horrible crash.
"Lookout! Don't drop it, you chump! See that string that passes down the back of the wall and into the closet?" said Skippy, proudly exhibiting a patent alarm which he had constructed with the aid of a delicately balanced dishpan. "I'm in the dining-room under the table. Well what?"
"Heavens! If Daddy ever sets that off!"
"He won't. You bet, I'll see to that," said Skippy hastily. "Well what? Do I get another quarter?"
There was a slight mental indecision after which the quarter came reluctantly to the detective. Tootsie went thoughtfully down to the beach. The new method did redound to the stability of the phonograph, but was Skippy really working as rapidly as he could?
"I should have offered a dollar and no more," said Tootsie to herself. "If this keeps up I'll be broke in a week."
So distressing was this outlook, that her mind refused to be diverted, and after a brief hesitation she returned to the house, intent on a more satisfactory financial arrangement. Now Tootsie was as fond of mystery stories as Skippy himself, and so with due regard to etiquette she dodged down the hedge, slunk behind the lilacs, and noiselessly let herself into the dining-room window. Then, cautiously, on hands and knees, she approached the mysteries of the dining-room table, behind the red cloth of which Skippy was to be waiting.
"Hist! It's me," she said in a wary whisper. Then, having consumed ten minutes in moving six feet serpent fashion across the creaky floor, she gained the table. Skippy was not there. She rose violently, bumping her head, scrambled out and rushed into the parlor. The phonograph likewise had disappeared.
"He's on the trail at last," she thought excitedly. "Hurray!"
But at that precise moment the strangest of strange, uncanny sounds was heard. Tootsie stood stock still and listened with a pumping heart. There was no question about it, the phonograph was gone, yet faintly, like a sinking moan, she heard, she was sure she heard, the thin, tinny sounds of a Sousa two-step. Theroom was dim, the house deserted. For one brief moment she stood panic-stricken, poised for flight. Then she shook her head angrily.
The partner of his arms, escaping, rolled over towards Tootsie. Page 182The partner of his arms, escaping, rolled over towards Tootsie. Page 182
"Fiddlesticks, phonographs don't have ghosts!"
And listening more intently, she gradually located the familiar strains as coming from the distant carriage house. In a fever of expectancy Tootsie flew across the lawns and gained the open door. Above her the phonograph was pumping out the thrilling measures of the latest two-step, but what puzzled her immediately were the scuffling, shifting sounds, like a scurry of rats, which accompanied it. Then a suspicion of the truth came to her and she tiptoed up the stairs. On the open floor Skippy with his arms about a strange shape was painfully treading in and out of a maze which, with a bench, a barrel and two chairs, he had arranged to visualize the perils of the ballroom.
"Thief!"
Skippy started, shied into the bench and went over backwards while the partner of his arms, escaping, rolled over towards Tootsie, discovering under Clara's best organdie dress the net-work of wire which made up the missing dressmaker's form!
THERE are great moments in life when the acquired veneer of society drops away and human beings revert to type. Tootsie lay down on her back and kicked her legs in the air, howling with glee. Skippy, disentangling himself from the bench, rose with slow deliberation. He saw that he faced a crisis. If Tootsie, now rolling before him in hysterical agony, ever was allowed to tell such a story as this, there would be no future for John C. Bedelle but to ship before the mast. Skippy thought hard and Skippy had the instincts of a diplomat. He decided to begin with a light conciliatory manner.
"Well, Tootsie, old girl, you've got the goods on me. What's your price?"
Tootsie's reply was a succession of hysterical gasps that sounded like a child with the whooping cough laughing over a comic section.
"What's your price?" Skippy repeated more firmly, but striving to maintain a sickly smile.
"OW! OW! OW!" said Tootsie, holding in her sides.
Skippy began to be alarmed. He thought a moment and then carefully removed the dressmaker's form and hid it behind a packing-case.But the sight of Skippy's dancing companion brought forth a fresh attack of hysterics. Then he had recourse to water and a dripping oily sponge. The sight of this so affected Tootsie that she rose precipitately and staggered to a chair. Skippy at once abandoned the sponge and sympathetically proffered his handkerchief.
"It's goin' to cost me a lot of money," he thought, considering her with anxiety. He had fifteen dollars stowed away with the intention of adding it to the cash returns of his approaching birthday and acquiring his first dress suit. He made a mental surrender and advancing to the somewhat calmer Tootsie, a third time asked:
"Well, come on! What's your price?"
"Thief!" said Tootsie, all at once remembering her grievance.
"Oh, I say, can't you take a joke?"
"A joke! Wait'll I get even with you, Mr. Smarty!"
"Go easy. Name your terms."
"And I paid you to watch it!" said Tootsie, whose anger began to rise as her respiration returned.
Skippy mournfully admitted to himself that this had been an unnecessary aggravation.
"Shucks! You didn't think I was going to keep the money, did you?" he said, bringing out a dollar bill and tendering it humbly.
Tootsie put the bill from her with the gesture of a tragedy queen, stood up, straightened her skirt and said:
"Just you wait, thief!"
"What are you going to do?"
"My business."
"You're not going to tell?" said Skippy, who had no doubt of her intention.
"Oh dear no! Oh no indeed!" said Tootsie, moving to depart.
Skippy sprang ahead, slammed the door, locked it and pocketed the key.
"What good does that do?" said Tootsie disdainfully.
"You'll not leave this room until you swear a solemn oath," said Skippy desperately.
"All right, I guess I can wait if you can," said Tootsie, settling down. "But I pity you when Dad gets hold of you—thief!"
Skippy deliberated, resolved on anything short of murder to stifle the threatening exposure. Sterner methods were necessary. All at once his eye spied a coil of rope in the corner and he sprang to it with a shout.
"What are you going to do?" said Tootsie wrathfully.
"I am going to tie and gag and leave you to starve," said Skippy, swinging a lasso.
There was a short and painful tussle in which his necktie was torn to shreds and he surrendered a certain amount of hair, but at the endof which, Miss Tootsie, tied hand and foot to a chair, was propped up against a pillar, while her conqueror proceeded to roll up his handkerchief with the evident intention of applying a gag.
"You'll like it when the rats come around," he said gloomily.
"Fiddlesticks! You can't scare me," said Tootsie with alarming calm.
"And there are bats too, don't forget the bats that get their claws in your hair," said Skippy, approaching with the gag, "and not a soul to hear your cries, you tattle-tale!"
"You'll get the licking of your life," said Tootsie, looking at him steadily. "Thief!"
"So you won't name your price!" said Skippy, passing behind her and holding the gag before her eyes.
"Not if you murder me—you thief!"
Skippy again considered.
"She doesn't scare worth a darn," he acknowledged to himself. Instead of applying the gag he departed to the opposite side, sat down and began to think. At the end of a long moment he rose and approached her with a brisk set manner.
"So you're going to tell, are you?"
"You just bet I'm going to tell, you coward!"
"All right, tell then!" He stooped, freed her legs and arms and rose. "Tell if you'vemade up your mind to—but God help you if you do. That's all I have to say."
"You can't scare me," said Tootsie, but already intrigued by the new plan of action which she divined behind her brother's silence.
"No, but there's some one I can scare!" said Skippy, unlocking the door. "All right! War to the knife, Miss Tootsie! Remember, though, I warned you!"
"Who are you threatening now?" said Tootsie, trying to conceal her anxiety; for long association had engendered a lively respect for the Skippy imagination.
"I never threaten," said Skippy disdainfully, "but if that red-haired, knock-kneed, overfed beau of yours ever sets foot on this place again, he comes in a hearse! And what goes for him, goes for all! Go on and tell, but you'll have the loneliest summer you've ever had, young lady!"
Five minutes later a treaty of peace was concluded on the basis of secret understandings secretly arrived at, and Miss Tootsie Bedelle replaced the dressmaker's figure in the arms of the triumphant diplomat while the phonograph gave forth the strains of the Washington Post.
Tootsie's terpsichorean assistance was sorely needed. Skippy was not a natural glider and gliding as Tootsie explained to him was essential in a ballroom, in polite society at least.Skippy's feet could skip, hop and jump with the best, but they were not, in any sense of the word, gliders. The change from the inanimate embrace of the dressmaker's form to Tootsie's pliant figure, however, worked such miracles that at the end of twenty minutes' industrious application, Tootsie expressed herself as astonished and delighted.
Now of course Skippy could have gone for instruction to Dolly Travers, who was the object of these secret efforts. But that was not the Skippy way. He had always shunned any exhibition of inferiority. Whatever was to be learned he learned in privacy and exhibited in public. He had taught himself to shoot marbles, to solve the intricate sequences of mumblety peg, to throw an out-curve, to pick up a double hitch with one hand, to chin himself, skin the cat and hang by his toes behind the safe seclusion of the barn wall. Whatever his failures they were not accompanied by the jeers of an audience. He had gone off in secret to the swimming pool by Bretton's creek and smarted for hours under crashing belly-whoppers until he had taught himself to dive forward and backward. Then he watched with grinning superiority the fate of less experienced youngsters who followed his dare.
So in the present sentimental crisis. To rank in the estimation of Miss Dolly Travers there was no escaping the fact that he would haveto surrender his prejudices and incline his feet to the popular way. But having reached this decision he determined to stage his effects. For two more Saturdays he continued in dignified isolation to escort Miss Travers to the weekly hop and back, guarding her scarf and fan, straining his mouth into the semblance of an interested smile while other fellows slipped their arms around the tiny figure and moved dexterously or heavily about the ballroom.
On the third Saturday, halfway to the club house, just as he had planned, Miss Dolly returned to the point of discussion.
"Jack, aren't you ever, ever going to learn to dance?"
"Oh well, perhaps some day," he said casually.
"But you can't go through life without dancing!"
"Oh no, of course not."
"Really I think it's just too selfish of you. You know how I adore it. Why won't you try? I do believe you're afraid of being laughed at."
Skippy smiled craftily to himself.
"Well, perhaps I'll have a try."
"That's what you've said every time," said Miss Dolly, shrugging her shoulders.
Skippy bided his opportunity until the third two-step had begun and the claimants for the favorite's hand were congregating.
"I'm sitting this out with Jack," said Dolly, with a sigh.
"Say, a fossil who can't dance oughtn't to have any rights around here, nohow," said Happy Mather. "You're only a clothes horse anyway, Skippy."
Dolly burst out laughing at this, which pained Skippy exceedingly.
"Oh, any chump can dance if he wants to."
"You think so?"
"Sure. Easiest thing in the world if I wanted to."
"Easy?"
"Sure. Just keeping in time, that's all."
"Here's a dollar you can't get three times around the room."
Skippy pretended to hesitate.
"I'll pay another dollar any day to see a circus," said Joe Crocker, beginning to smirk.
"Dolly, hold the money," said Skippy.
Miss Dolly looked up in some consternation for the group now numbered a half a dozen and the floor was vast and bare.
"Don't you want to wait a little?" she said with a glance at Crocker, who was nudging his neighbor.
"What's the use?" said Skippy. "Now tell me again what I do."
"Two steps with the left forward and then two steps with the right. Hold my arm so," said Dolly a little breathlessly.
"Hold on tight, Skippy," said Happy Mather.
"Step on your own feet."
"Balance on your heels."
"Don't let them rattle you, Jack."
"They can't. Which foot do I start on?"
"The left."
"Shall we give him a push, Dolly?" said Lazelle sympathetically, while his companions, linking arms, were beaming with anticipated delight.
Skippy, having properly worked up his audience, nodded to his partner and floated off in a perfect dancing style.
"Jack, you wretch, you've danced for years!" said Dolly after the first surprise had passed. "You've just been making fun of me all this time."
"Never been on a ballroom floor before in my life," said Skippy, keeping within the letter of the truth.
"Why you're wonderful, Jack! But then how could you—"
"It's mental, everything is mental," said Skippy conceitedly. "I just watched till I got it in my mind and the rest was easy. Thanks for the long green. Hello, what's become of our little gallery of nuts?"
Whether or not Dolly was entirely convinced by this casual explanation, the immediate return to Skippy was enormous. Not only were the claimants to her affections completely distanced,but Miss Dolly, for a time, adopted an attitude of respect and deference towards him, which had formerly been totally lacking.
Skippy was tremendously in love. There was no doubt about that. You could see it in the dishpan glow of his scrubbed forehead, in the spotless flannels and the lily white hands. There was something secure and permanent in the attachment. Dolly was not sentimental and only distantly affectionate, but she was absorbing. There was no question of an eight-hour day in his case. From ninea.m.until Mr. Travers ostentatiously began to bar the library windows for the night, Mr. Skippy Bedelle was at one end of a wire with Miss Dolly Travers at the other, pushing the button.
That practical young lady, realizing that Skippy's earning capacity was still woefully limited, permitted no allusions to the distant holy bonds of matrimony, but she did allow him to mortgage his future to the extent of the promenade and dances which would decorate his scholastic and collegiate journey, as well as attendance at all athletic contests of any nature whatsoever. On his birthday (when the sinking fund toward the first dress suit rose to the colossal sum of fifty dollars) they solemnly exchanged pins, Dolly openly sporting the red and black of Lawrenceville, while Skippy concealed in the secret recesses of his tie a little gold wishbone which would lead him to thehigher prizes in life, add three inches to his stature and the additional twenty pounds necessary to qualify for the varsity.
His fall from grace was of course the subject of great merriment among his companions, particularly Happy Mather and Joe Crocker in whom memory still rankled. A direct insult was of course dangerous, but there were other subtler ways. At least half a dozen times a day some one was sure to ask him,
"I say, Skippy, what's doing to-night?"
"Got anything on this afternoon?"
But Skippy brushed aside their crude attempts at persiflage with indifference. He had won out. The courted prize was his. For two weeks not a cloud obtruded on the clear sky of his content. Dolly bullied and bossed him. He did her errands. He fetched and carried. He served her and no other goddess. And then tragedy arrived with the arrival of the celebrated Hickey Hicks, who came down to spend a fortnight with the Triumphant Egghead.