XVIRATS!
THE Levering spring-house had long ago gone to pieces to furnish part of the masonry of a new workshop, designed by Bardek and built by Mac, with everybody assisting. They picked a spot at the north of the orchard, where the light was right, and distant enough from habitation to allow for the most riotous hammering. A great chimney with both hand- and foot-bellows forge was the center about which the one-story, roomy structure spread.
The Leverings hardly knew what was going on. They had this satisfaction, however: Gorgas was on her own grounds, Mac was always within hail and Bardek, his wife, and the two shining-eyed youngsters had so won the affection of everyone that they were added as theoretic protectors. When young men called, they sauntered around to the cozy shop, looked on, smoked at their ease and drank continuous tea and ate toasted muffins. Kate often spent mornings there, pottering over punched brass, and thinking, to the pantomimic disgust of Bardek, that she was a workman, too. But no one seemed quite aware that a serious art was being studied in that busy quarter.
Mrs. Levering began to get inklings of the deep natureof the undertaking when a big order for a complete hand-wrought silver service was finished, dispatched, and the check forwarded. Bardek had been the business manager in securing that and other orders which followed, and he had overseen the designing and had plotted out the work; but the labor and the return were placed entirely to Gorgas’ account.
“My dear child,” the mother’s eyes focused agreeably upon the amount. “This is dreadful! You’re actually making money! Are you sure you are not taking advantage of someone? How could a little girl like you earn so much?”
But she soon accustomed herself to that sort of thing, and promptly let Gorgas take out a separate bank account, and thriftily watched the amount swell. It was quite proper, she assured herself, for a girl to make money, provided she stayed at home, and provided, too, it was something respectable, like—uh—art. Of course, this metal business was art; at least, the silver part was—she was somewhat dubious over the copper, really, the most artistic accomplishment of the shop; and the settings of copper and semi-precious stones, the hand-wrought gold rings—that was art and respectable. She wished, of course, that there were no necessity for the ugly forge and for the heavy malleting; but then, that was all done in the secluded shop away from the street. To think that all this silly pottering had turned out to be worth something! What a wonderful adviser was Allen Blynn! When she thought of the pleasant checks, she was grateful thatshe had been too busy at the time to oppose the building of the shop.
But in spite of the obvious fact that Gorgas was able to earn her own way, the mother continued to keep a controlling hand, as if the child were still a toddler needing protection, and not an independent young woman of seventeen: her letters had still to be O. K.’d, the hours of retiring were not to be changed, and the other claims of womanhood, the style of gown and hat and the mode of wearing the hair—these were still matters of maternal jurisdiction. And being the younger daughter she had more mothering—as is often the case—than Kate, who had long ago secured her rights to do as she pleased.
There were suggestions of rebellion and occasional flurries of attack and retreat. At seventeen, Gorgas had gained her right to give all her mornings to the “smitty,” as the shop was locally dubbed; she had won out in her right to play tennis and hockey, to bicycle and—an ability discovered by Bardek—to fence.
“Why can’t you just ride or drive and take walks?” the mother had complained. “These other games are so boyish and ‘tough,’ my dear. They give you a color like a hoyden—positively I was ashamed of you last Wednesday at dinner—and you have a stride like a young rowdy. Of course, I can’t tell you it’s not ladylike. I see that has no effect upon you; but you might consider how I feel when you walk through the streets in that tennis costume—I suppose one might call it a costume. In a boy it is all right; young Morrisis quite attractive; but you, you look positively unsexed, Gorgas—I’m almost ashamed to use the word. And really, my dear, I must object to your putting off stays. You will never come around if you don’t begin early. Your figure is—well, is there no proper womanly argument that can reach you?”
“Health, first, mother,” Gorgas would say firmly. “I work hard all morning, I practice at music, to please you, and I must keep up my reading. Then, open air for me and a stiff fight and a shower. That makes me sing; makes me fit to do things. I wouldn’t have an original design in my head if I cooped up like most women. They are talking about voting! I’m with them there, but good Heavens! they could be enfranchised tomorrow if they could only break loose and live a decent, wholesome life.”
The severest quarrel was over clothes. Gorgas’ artistic sense was a deep-rooted thing. She protested, but without result, against the slave-like selection of “what everybody was wearing.” Women seemed to be uniformed like a squad of infantry, irrespective of individual build or personal taste. That repelled her. Not that she wanted to do anything eccentric; it was just her desire to be inconspicuous that led to a wish to study herself and, within the restrictions of the prevailing vogue, to clothe herself true to her own personal note.
Blynn had walked with her on one of his rare holidays home—lecturing usually kept him busy in vacation time—when she was driven out of herself and intostolidity by the mere fact of an outrageous puffed-sleeve affair, over which her mother had spent hours of selecting. To Gorgas, it was like wearing some other person’s clothing. She had gawked about, submerged in self-consciousness; and her chagrin she expressed in vindictive attacks on the unoffending Allen.
Gorgas resolved to end it then and there. One afternoon in February, 1893—Gorgas was seventeen and a half, but felt tremendously older—she interviewed the chief cutter of a smart Walnut street tailoring establishment and outlined to him her plans for a series of frocks and coats that made his eyes glisten. She produced a check for part-payment, and made it peremptorily clear that her own ideas were to prevail or no sale.
“Mother, I’ve ordered some spring clothes,” she let the news out bluntly. “I won’t stand being dressed and undressed and being put to bed any longer. You’d better get used to the idea, for it’s to be the thing. I’m paying my way now and I’ve got to go it on my own.”
And then she left immediately for the “smitty.”
Those were stormy days in the Levering family, but the disturbance was all from the elders. Gorgas was serene and calm. They were sure Gorgas would adopt some reckless fashion that would put them down before everybody, probably a bifurcated skirt or an out-and-out Dr. Mary Walker attire. There was much talk in the air at that period of boldly abolishing the dress distinction of sex. But when Gorgas appeared before them one afternoon in a neat, inconspicuous, tailor-madegown, right as to style, but with a mysterious wonder in it of something just beyond the style, the family capitulated. Capitulated? They broke ranks and rushed over one another to cheer the enemy.
Mount Airy, after all, had always been a country village. Its main charm, in spite of its nearness to a large city, was not its suburbanity, but its rurality. And it was well-known that the most careful copying by Mount Airyites of the designs in Godey’s “Lady Book,” would always be crude and home-made when compared with exactly the same pattern worn by the city ladies who could be seen any day moving in and out of certain exclusive in-town shops. The distinguishing difference is not so much one of material as of art.
In that apparel Gorgas could have argued the family out of its house and grounds. Oh, the subtle overpowering authority of the right gown! It will give strength to weakness, add courage to the natural craven, and overawe even Lizzie-in-the-kitchen. If I were a physician I would make most of my prescriptions on the blanks of proper tailors. Most women are not ill, they are simply inadequately gowned; their strength is oozing away through the terrible struggle to feel better than they look. And it is not primarily a question of money; it is a matter of taste and intelligence.
The young men responded instantly to the new touch. They didn’t know how it had happened, but the news passed quickly along that Gorgas Levering was “allright.” Callers, formal and informal, of all ages from sixteen to thirty-five, dropped in or begged permission, according to the type. The “smitty,” on Thursday afternoons, became a sort of rendezvous for all this fluttering group. Work and play were declared off, and the reception of guests was in order. Mrs. Levering occasionally dropped in, in her capacity as overseer, but Kate was always present, the mother’s viceroy; and Bea Wilcox and a few of Gorgas’ intimates; and, of course, Bardek.
Here they sang, chatted and danced as the mood seized. And on clear, summer afternoons there was always the tennis-court and the shadowy orchard; in winter there was hockey and skating on the Wissahickon at Valley Green, or, more often, roastings and toastings before the huge log fire in the “smitty.”
Gorgas’ permanent exhibition of unsold work brought other visitors. These came at all times. Usually, it was Bardek’s business to do the explaining and the selling, a duty he loved, and some of the customers became regular visitors and eventually slipped over into the Thursday afternoon group. Not that the Thursday afternoon group could be kept away at other times. Gorgas rather welcomed the opportunity to chat while she worked, but she always worked—except once.
One Thursday in April Morris took Gorgas aside and asked if he couldn’t come the next day in the morning and have a private talk with her.
She looked him over suspiciously.
“We’ve been partners for a long while, Neddie,” she summed up her look. “This sounds mighty strange and mysterious. Give me a hint beforehand. What’s up?”
“Can’t do it here,” he scowled at the crowd. “I’ll be in at about eleven. What d’y’ say?”
“How absurd you are,” she held him off to search his face. “You know anyone may see me at any time.”
“I know,” he hastened to explain awkwardly in the midst of the chatter and movement. “This is different. This is something—I can’t tell you here.”
“Well,” she patted him on the arm, “come along, sonny. You’ll have to talk loud. I’ve got a special fine lot of hammering to do that won’t wait.”
That night she tossed about and brought herself to book.
Morris had been behaving lately in a way they do before they begin to go to pieces and become temporary asses in the presence of their Titania. He had lost his fine spirit ofcamaraderie. He had been glaring at his fraternity pin, which Gorgas used, like a dozen other such articles, to adorn the dress it best suited. He had been moody and listless—the usual symptoms; and he had been hanging about like a stupid.
Try as she might she couldn’t get a thrill out of the thought. Ned Morris was a brother; that was all; a splendid chum, the sort at fellow you get terribly used to and wouldn’t give up without a fight. But anything else— Horrors! It was profanation of friendship to think it.
Nevertheless, she enjoyed the prospect of an adorer. It gave her the most unaccountable feeling of elation and self-pity and yearning and depression—all enjoyable sensations, every one. It attacked her so hard that she arose at sun-up, ate no breakfast, and let the metal work slide.
“You do not work today?” Bardek looked up from his bench, where he was inlaying a hair-like design of silver in the softest copper.
“Nope.”
“You are sick, may be?”
“Goodness, no!”
Hammer, hammer, hammer.
“Goin’ to jus’—loaf, eh?”
“Rather.”
Hammer, hammer.
“Ah! you fight the French revolution all over again with the mother?” he guessed. “Bome! bome!Down will go t’e Bastile. Huzza! Out come the prisoners—little ladies who t’eir mutters have boxed up!Vive la révolution des jeunes filles!”
Hammer, hammer, hammer.
“What?” he looked up.
“Wrong tack, Bardek. Take in a reef.”
“Eh? What?”
“And let down your jib.”
“Nom du nom!What language you talk?” Tap, tap, tap. “Somebody come, eh?”
“Yes; Morris.”
“Ho-ho-o-o!” softly, as much as to say, “So that’sthe way the wind blows.” “Ho-ho-o-o!” louder, meaning, “I’ve been suspecting that boy.” “Ho-ho-o-o!” very wisely, with a glance that said, “I understand what’s in your little head, missy!”
“Oh, rats! Bardek.”
She arose and tried a few strokes, but soon gave it up.
“Perhaps Morris he would take share in partnership?” Bardek inquired with grotesque sympathy.
“Rats!” she called back.
“R-rats!” Bardek laughed as he tapped. “Rats—it is the meaning of what? When I say, ‘How beautiful is Miss Gorgas, this morning,’ Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’—that is to say, ‘Thank you so much for compliment.’ When I say, ‘She work too hard, she must play more,’ Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’—that is to say, ‘Do you think I small child, eh?’ If I say, ‘When you going marry, Miss Gorgas?’ Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’—which is to say, ‘Shut up, you ol’ fool, and mind own business.’ It is vairy convenient; one nice, little word do for everything. It mean, ‘I don’t believe you’; it mean, ‘Go bag your head’; it mean, ‘Not on your tin-type.’ Jus’ now it mean, ‘Mr. Morris will talk to Miss Gorgas on vairy important matter. Ol’ Bardek better take holiday and fix more w’ite-wash in his house.’”
“Rats! Bardek,” she stopped him. “Stay where you are. I don’t want to seem to be clearing everybody out for Ned Morris. If we want to talk privately, we’ll go into the orchard. It’s warm enough outside.”
Bardek grinned so openly that she was forced into some sort of explanation. She talked earnestly and Bardek affected to be perfectly guileless.
“Morris is just a good friend, Bardek; not a thing more. Not a thing more.”
“Rats!” roared Bardek, suddenly slipping from earnest solicitude into loud irony. “Oh, I love that nice, easy, little word. It saves so much breath. I say, ‘Rats!’ and I mean, oh, a whole lot. With one word I say, ‘Don’t you be telling me all that foolishness about friend business and all that. The friend business is all played out. It had one grand failure, long ago, when Adam thought he try. Mr. Morris, he just like Adam. He hang ’round ’while and watch animals and sleep in the sun. Then, one day he wake up and he say he want nice, long talk, all alone; and Eve, she dress up in nice clothes, she can’t work, can’t hammer, can’t sit down, can’t walk, can’t do one thing but look and look and look at not’ing at all, and say, ‘Rats!’ All that for one little word!”
“Double fault, Bardek; you’re putting too many in the net.”
That was one way thoroughly to mystify the earnest student of English. Bardek studied hard, but never succeeded in getting the hang of American sporting terms. “Get a good lead! Go down with his arm! Two out; play for the batter! 68-22, through left-guard!” These phrases seemed to have meaning to Americans, but not one spark of intelligence was in them for the many-languaged Bohemian.
“I put too many into the net?” he repeated. “T’e English cannot be one of my native speeches, but when I see all these nice—” he drawled it into something like “nah-ees”—“young boys flying so like butterfly ’round Miss Gorgas I zink she do not putoneinto the net!”
Gorgas was busy sorting out some long branches of fresh willow for a corner decoration. She looked over sideways at Bardek, who tapped away with the air of a man who has made a hit. But she silenced him.
“Play in, boys; he’s going to bunt,” she remarked and watched with satisfaction the grin fade from Bardek’s face and in its place appear the rapt expression of a puzzled linguist.
“What is this—‘bunt’?” he asked at last, his mind completely off guard.
“It is an unexpected bingle, Bardek, that puts the infield in the soup,” she explained serenely as she left the “smitty” for more willow branches.