The next three weeks were busy times for Percy. He wore Tish's blanket for two days, and then, finding it in the way, he discarded it altogether. Seen in daylight it was easy to understand why little Dorothea was in love with him. He was a handsome young giant, although much bitten by mosquitoes and scratched with briers.
The arrangement was a good one all round. He knew of things in the wood we'd never heard of—wild onions and artichokes, and he had found a clump of wild cherry trees. He made snares of the fibers of tree bark, and he brought in turtles and made plates out of the shells. And all the time he was working on his outfit, curing rabbit skins and sewing them together with fibers under my direction.
When he'd made one sleeve of his coat we had a sort of celebration. He'd found an empty bottle somewhere in the woods, and he had made a wild-cherry decoction that he declared was cherry brandy, keeping it in the sun to ferment. Well, he insisted on opening the brandy that day and passing it round. We had cups made of leaves and we drank to his sleeve, although the stuff was villainous. He had put the sleeve on, and it looked rather inadequate. "Here's fun," he said joyously. "If my English tailor could see this sleeve he'd die of envy. A sleeve's not all of a coat, but what's a coat without a sleeve? Look at it—grace, ease of line, and beauty of material."
Aggie lifted her leaf.
"To Dorothea!" she said. "And may the sleeve soon be about her."
Tish thought this toast was not delicate, but Percy was enchanted with it.
It was on the evening of the fourth day of Percy's joining our camp that the Willoughby person appeared. It happened at a most inauspicious time. We had eaten supper and were gathered round the camp-fire and Tish had put wet leaves on the blaze to make a smudge that would drive the mosquitoes away. We were sitting there, Tish and I coughing and Aggie sneezing in the smoke, when Percy came running through the woods and stopped at the foot of a tree near by.
"Bring a club, somebody," he yelled. "I've treed the back of my coat."
Tish ran with one of the tent poles. A tepee is inconvenient for that reason. Every time any one wants a fishing-pole or a weapon, the tent loses part of its bony structure and sags like the face of a stout woman who has reduced. And it turned out that Percy had treed a coon. He climbed up after it, taking Tish's pole with him to dislodge it, and it was at that moment that a man rode into the clearing and practically fell off his horse. He was dirty and scratched with brambles, and his once immaculate riding-clothes were torn. He was about to take off his hat when he got a good look at us and changed his mind.
"Have you got anything to eat?" he asked. "I've been lost since noon yesterday and I'm about all in."
The leaves caught fire suddenly and sent a glow into Percy's tree. I shall never forget Aggie's agonized look or the way Tish flung on more wet leaves in a hurry.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but supper's over."
"But surely a starving man—"
"You won't starve inside of a week," Tish snapped. "You've got enough flesh on you for a month."
He stared at her incredulously.
"But, my good woman," he said, "I can pay for my food. Even you itinerant folk need money now and then, don't you? Come, now, cook me a fish; I'll pay for it. My name is Willoughby—J.K. Willoughby. Perhaps you've heard of me."
Tish cast a swift glance into the tree. It was in shadow again and she drew a long breath. She said afterward that the whole plan came to her in the instant of that breath.
"We can give you something," she said indifferently. "We have a stewed rabbit, if you care for it."
There was a wild scramble in the tree at that moment, and we thought all was over. We learned later that Percy had made a move to climb higher, out of the firelight, and the coon had been so startled that he almost fell out. But instead of looking up to investigate, the stranger backed toward the fire.
"Only a wildcat," said Tish. "They'll not come near the fire."
"Near!" exclaimed Mr. Willoughby. "If they came any nearer, they'd have to get into it!"
"I think," said Tish, "that if you are afraid of them—although you are safe enough if you don't get under the trees; they jump down, you know—that you would better stay by the fire to-night. In the morning we'll start you toward a road."
All night with Percy in the tree! I gave her a savage glance, but she ignored me.
The Willoughby looked up nervously, and of course there were trees all about.
"I guess I'll stay," he agreed. "What about that rabbit?"
I did not know Tish's plan at that time, and while Aggie was feeding the Willoughby person and he was grumbling over his food, I took Tish aside.
"Are you crazy?" I demanded. "Just through your idiocy Percy will have to stay in that tree all night—and he'll go to sleep, likely, and fall out."
Tish eyed me coldly.
"You are a good soul, Lizzie," she observed, "but don't overwork your mind. Go back and do something easy—let the Willoughby cross your palm with silver, and tell his fortune. If he asks any questions I'm queen of the gypsies, and give him to understand that we're in temporary hiding from the law. The worse he thinks of us the better. Remember, we haven't seen Percy."
"I'm not going to lie," I said sternly.
"Pooh!" Tish sneered. "That wretch came into the woods to gloat over his rival's misery. The truth's too good for him."
I did my best, and I still have the silver dollar he gave me. I told him I saw a small girl, who loved him but didn't realize it yet, and there was another man.
"Good gracious," I said, "there must be something wrong with your palm. I see the other man, but he seems to be in trouble. His clothing has been stolen, for he has none, and he is hungry, very hungry."
"Ha!" said Mr. Willoughby, looking startled. "You old gypsies beat the devil! Hungry, eh? Is that all?"
The light flared up again and I could see clearly the pale spot in the tree, which was Percy. But Mr. Willoughby's eyes were on his palm.
"He has about decided to give up something—I cannot see just what," I said loudly. "He seems to be in the air, in a tree, perhaps. If he wishes to be safe he should go higher."
Percy took the hint and moved up, and I said that was all there was in the palm. Soon after that Mr. Willoughby stretched out on the ground by the fire, and before long he was asleep.
During the night I heard Tish moving stealthily about in the tepee and she stepped on my ankle as she went out. I fell asleep again as soon as it stopped aching. Just at dawn Tish came back and touched me on the shoulder.
"Where's the blackberry cordial?" she whispered I sat up instantly.
"Has Percy fallen out of the tree?"
"No. Don't ask any questions, Lizzie. I want it for myself. That dratted horse fell on me."
She refused to say any more and lay down groaning. But I was too worried to sleep again. In the morning Percy was gone from the tree. Mr. Willoughby had more rabbit and prepared to leave the forest. He offered Tish a dollar for the two meals and a bed, and Tish, who was moving about stiffly, said that she and her people took no money for their hospitality. Telling fortunes was one thing, bread and salt was another. She looked quite haughty, and the Willoughby person apologized and went into the woods to get his horse.
The horse was gone!
It was rather disagreeable for a time. He plainly thought we'd taken it, although Tish showed him that the end of the strap had been chewed partly through and then jerked free.
"If the creature smelled a wildcat," she said, "nothing would hold it. None of my people ever bring a horse into this part of the country."
"Humph!" said Mr. Willoughby. "Well, I'll bet they take a few out!"
He departed on foot shortly after, very disgusted and suspicious. We showed him the trail, and the last we saw of him he was striding along, looking up now and then for wildcats.
When he was well on his way, Percy emerged from the bushes. I had thought that he had helped Tish to take the Willoughby horse, but it seems he had not, and he was much amazed when Tish came through the wood leading the creature by the broken strap.
"I'll turn it loose," she said to Percy, "and you can capture it. It will make a good effect for you to emerge from the forest on horseback, and anyhow, what with the rabbit skin, the tent, and the sundial and the other things, you have a lot to carry. You can say you found it straying in the woods and captured it."
Percy looked at her with admiration not unmixed with reverence. "Miss Letitia," he said solemnly, "if it were not for Dorothea, I should ask you to marry me. I'd like to have you in my family."
I am very nearly to the end of my narrative.
Toward the last Percy was obliged to work far into the night, for of course we could not assist him. He made a full suit of rabbit skins sewed with fibers, and a cap and shoes of coonskin to match. The shoes were cut from a bedroom-slipper pattern that Tish traced in the sand on the beach, and the cap had an eagle feather in it. He made a birch-bark knapsack to hold the fish he smoked and a bow and arrow that looked well but would not shoot. When he had the outfit completed, he put it on, with the stone hatchet stuck into a grapevine belt and the bow and arrow over his shoulder, and he looked superb.
"The question is," he reflected, trying to view himself in the edge of the lake: "Will Dorothea like it? She's very keen about clothes. And gee, how she hates a beard!"
"You could shave as the Indians do," Tish said.
"How?"
"With a clamshell."
He looked dubious, but Tish assured him it was feasible. So he hunted a clamshell, a double one, Tish requested, and brought it into camp.
"I'd better do it for you," said Tish. "It's likely to be slow, but it is sure."
He was eyeing the clamshell and looking more and more uneasy.
"You're not going to scrape it off?" he asked anxiously. "You know, pumice would be better for that, but somehow I don't like the idea."
"Nothing of the sort," said Tish. "The double clamshell merely forms a pair of Indian nippers. I'm going to pull it out."
But he made quite a fuss about it, and said he didn't care whether the Indians did it or not, he wouldn't. I think he saw how disappointed Tish was and was afraid she would attempt it while he slept, for he threw the Indian nippers into the lake and then went over and kissed her hand.
"Dear Miss Tish," he said; "no one realizes more than I your inherent nobility of soul and steadfastness of purpose. I admire them both. But if you attempt the Indian nipper business, or to singe me like a chicken while I sleep, I shall be—forgive me, but I know my impulsiveness of disposition—I shall be really vexed with you."
Toward the last we all became uneasy for fear hard work was telling on him physically. He used to sit cross-legged on the ground, sewing for dear life and singing Hood's "Song of the Shirt" in a doleful tenor.
"You know," he said, "I've thought once or twice I'd like to do something—have a business like other fellows. But somehow dressmaking never occurred to me. Don't you think the expression of this right pant is good? And shall I make this gore bias or on the selvage?"
He wanted to slash one trouser leg.
"Why not?" he demanded when Tish frowned him down. "It's awfully fetching, and beauty half-revealed, you know. Do you suppose my breastbone will ever straighten out again? It's concave from stooping."
It was after this that Tish made him exercise morning and evening and then take a swim in the lake. By the time he was to start back, he was in wonderful condition, and even the horse looked saucy and shiny, owing to our rubbing him down each day with dried grasses.
The actual leave-taking was rather sad. We'd grown to think a lot of the boy and I believe he liked us. He kissed each one of us twice, once for himself and once for Dorothea, and flushed a little over doing it, and Aggie's eyes were full of tears.
He rode away down the trail like a mixture of Robinson Crusoe and Indian brave, his rubbing-fire stick, his sundial with burned figures, and his bow and arrow jingling, his eagle feather blowing back in the wind, and his moccasined feet thrust into Mr. Willoughby's stirrups, and left us desolate. Tish watched him out of sight with set lips and Aggie was whimpering on a bank.
"Tish," she said brokenly, "does he recall anything to you?"
"Only my age," said Tish rather wearily, "and that I'm an elderly spinster teaching children to defy their parents and committing larceny to help them."
"To me," said Aggie softly, "he is young love going out to seek his mate. Oh, Tish, do you remember how Mr. Wiggins used to ride by taking his work horses to be shod!"
We went home the following day, which was the time the spring-wagon man was to meet us. We started very early and were properly clothed and hatted when we saw him down the road.
The spring-wagon person came on without hurry and surveyed us as he came.
"Well, ladies," he said, stopping before us, "I see you pulled it off all right."
"We've had a very nice time, thank you," said Tish, drawing on her gloves. "It's been rather lonely, of course."
The spring-wagon person did not speak again until he had reached the open road. Then he turned round.
"The horse business was pretty good," he said. "You ought to hev seen them folks when he rode out of the wood. Flabbergasted ain't the word. They was ding-busted."
Tish whispered to us to show moderate interest and to say as little as possible, except to protest our ignorance. And we got the story at last like this:—
It seems the newspapers had been full of the attempt Percy was to make, and so on the day before quite a crowd had gathered to see him come out of the wood.
"Ten of these here automobiles," said the spring-wagon person, "and a hay-wagon full of newspaper fellows from the city with cameras, and about half the village back home walked out or druv and brought their lunches—sort of a picnic. I kep' my eye on the girl and on a Mr. Willoughby.
"The story is that Willoughby who was the father's choice—Willoughby was pale and twitching and kep' moving about all the time. But the girl, she just kep' her eyes on the trail and waited. Noon was the time set, or as near it as possible.
"The father talked to the newspaper men mostly. 'I don't think he'll do it, boys!' he said. 'He's as soft as milk and he's surprised me by sticking it out as long as he has. But mark my words, boys,' he said, 'he's been living on berries and things he could pick up off the ground, and if his physical condition's bad he loses all bets!"
It seems that, just as he said it, somebody pulled out a watch and announced "noon." And on the instant Percy was seen riding down the trail and whistling. At first they did not know it was he, as they had expected him to arrive on foot, staggering with fatigue probably. He rode out into the sunlight, still whistling, and threw an unconcerned glance over the crowd.
He looked at the trees, and located north by the moss on the trunks, the S.-W.P. said, and unslinging his Indian clock he held it in front of him, pointing north and south. It showed exactly noon. It was then, and not until then, that Percy addressed the astonished crowd.
"Twelve o'clock, gentlemen," he said. "My watch is quite accurate."
Nobody said anything, being, as the S.-W.P. remarked, struck dumb. But a moment afterward the hay-wagon started a cheer and the machines took it up. Even the father "let loose," as we learned, and the little girl sat back in her motor car and smiled through her tears.
But Willoughby was furious. It seems he had recognized the horse. "That's my horse," he snarled. "You stole it from me."
"As a matter of fact," Percy retorted, "I found the beast wandering loose among the trees and I'm perfectly willing to return him to you. I brought him out for a purpose."
"To make a Garrison finish!"
"Not entirely. To prove that you violated the contract by going into the forest to see if you could find me and gloat over my misery. Instead you found—By the way, Willoughby, did you see any wild-cats?"
"Those three hags are in this!" said Willoughby furiously. "Are you willing to swear you made that silly outfit?"
"I am, but not to you."
"And at that minute, if you'll believe me," said the S.-W.P., "the girl got out of her machine and walked right up to the Percy fellow. I was standing right by and I heard what she said. It was curious, seeing he'd had no help and had gone in naked, as you may say, and came out clothed head to foot, with a horse and weapons and a watch, and able to make fire in thirty-one seconds, and a tent made of about a thousand rabbit skins."
Tish eyed him coldly.
"What did she say?" she demanded severely. "She said: 'Those three dear old things!'" replied the S.-W.P. "And she said: 'I hope you kissed them for me.'"
"He did indeed," said Aggie dreamily, and only roused when Tish nudged her in a rage.
Charlie Sands came to have tea with us yesterday at Tish's. He is just back from England and full of the subject.
"But after all," he said, "the Simple Lifers take the palm. Think of it, my three revered and dearly beloved spinster friends; think of the peace, the holy calm of it! Now, if you three would only drink less tea and once in a while would get back to Nature a bit, it would be good for you. You're all too civilized."
"Probably," said Tish, pulling down her sleeves to hide her sunburned hands. "But do you think people have so much time in the—er—woods?"
"Time!" he repeated. "Why, what is there to do?"
Just then the doorbell rang and a huge box was carried in. Tish had a warning and did not wish to open it, but Charlie Sands insisted and cut the string. Inside were three sets of sable furs, handsomer than any in the church, Tish says, and I know I've never seen any like them.
Tish and I hid the cards, but Aggie dropped hers and Charlie Sands pounced on it.
"'The sleeve is now about Dorothea,'" he read aloud, and then, turning, eyed us all sternly.
"Now, then," said Charlie Sands, "out with it! What have you been up to this time?"
Tish returned his gaze calmly. "We have been in the Maine woods in the holy calm," she said. "As for those furs, I suppose a body may buy a set of furs if she likes." This, of course, was not a lie. "As for that card, it's a mistake." Which it was indeed.
"But—Dorothea!" persisted Charlie Sands.
"Never in my life knew anybody named Dorothea. Did you, Aggie?"
"Never," said Aggie firmly.
Charlie Sands apologized and looked thoughtful. On Tish's remaining rather injured, he asked us all out to dinner that night, and almost the first thing he ordered was frogs' legs. Aggie got rather white about the lips.
"I—I think I'll not take any," she said feebly. "I—I keep thinking of Tish tickling their throats with the hairpin, and how Percy—"
We glared at her, but it was too late. Charlie Sands drew up his chair and rested his elbows on the table.
"So there was a Percy as well as a Dorothea!" he said cheerfully. "I might have known it. Now we'll have the story!"
It is easy enough, of course, to look back on our Canadian experience and see where we went wrong. What I particularly resent is the attitude of Charlie Sands.
I am writing this for his benefit. It seems to me that a clean statement of the case is due to Tish, and, in less degree, to Aggie and myself.
It goes back long before the mysterious cipher. Even the incident of our abducting the girl in the pink tam-o'-shanter was, after all, the inevitable result of the series of occurrences that preceded it.
It is my intention to give this series of occurrences in their proper order and without bias. Herbert Spencer says that every act of one's life is the unavoidable result of every act that has preceded it.
Naturally, therefore, I begin with the engagement by Tish of a girl as chauffeur; but even before that there were contributing causes. There was the faulty rearing of the McDonald youth, for instance, and Tish's æsthetic dancing. And afterward there was Aggie's hay fever, which made her sneeze and let go of a rope at a critical moment. Indeed, Aggie's hay fever may be said to be one of the fundamental causes, being the reason we went to Canada.
It was like this: Along in June of the year before last, Aggie suddenly announced that she was going to spend the summer in Canada.
"It's the best thing in the world for hay fever," she said, avoiding Tish's eye. "Mrs. Ostermaier says she never sneezed once last year. The Northern Lights fill the air with ozone, or something like that."
"Fill the air with ozone!" Tish scoffed. "Fill Mrs. Ostermaier's skull with ozone, instead of brains, more likely!"
Tish is a good woman—a sweet woman, indeed; but she has a vein of gentle irony, which she inherited from her maternal grandfather, who was on the Supreme Bench of his country. However, that spring she was inclined to be irritable. She could not drive her car, and that was where the trouble really started.
Tish had taken up æsthetic dancing in March, wearing no stays and a middy blouse and short skirt; and during a fairy dance, where she was to twirl on her right toes, keeping the three other limbs horizontal, she twisted her right lower limb severely. Though not incapacitated, she could not use it properly; and, failing one day to put on the brake quickly, she drove into an open-front butter-and-egg shop.
[This was the time one of the newspapers headed the article: "Even the Eggs Scrambled."]
When Tish decided to have a chauffeur for a time she advertised. There were plenty of replies, but all of the applicants smoked cigarettes—a habit Tish very properly deplores. The idea of securing a young woman was, I must confess, mine.
"Plenty of young women drive cars," I said, "and drive well. And, at least, they don't light a cigarette every time one stops to let a train go by."
"Huh!" Tish commented. "And have a raft of men about all the time!"
Nevertheless, she acted on the suggestion, advertising for a young woman who could drive a car and had no followers. Hutchins answered.
She was very pretty and not over twenty; but, asked about men, her face underwent a change, almost a hardening. "You'll not be bothered with men," she said briefly. "I detest them!"
And this seemed to be the truth. Charlie Sands, for instance, for whose benefit this is being written, absolutely failed to make any impression on her. She met his overtures with cold disdain. She was also adamant to the men at the garage, succeeding in having the gasoline filtered through a chamois skin to take out the water, where Tish had for years begged for the same thing without success.
Though a dashing driver, Hutchins was careful. She sat on the small of her back and hurled us past the traffic policemen with a smile.
[Her name was really Hutchinson; but it took so long to say it at the rate she ran the car that Tish changed it to Hutchins.]
Really the whole experiment seemed to be an undoubted success, when Aggie got the notion of Canada into her head. Now, as it happened, owing to Tish's disapproval, Aggie gave up the Canada idea in favor of Nantucket, some time in June; but she had not reckoned with Tish's subconscious self. Tish was interested that spring in the subconscious self.
You may remember that, only a year or so before, it had been the fourth dimension.
[She became convinced that if one were sufficiently earnest one could go through closed doors and see into solids. In the former ambition she was unsuccessful, obtaining only bruises and disappointment; but she did develop the latter to a certain extent, for she met the laundress going out one day and, without a conscious effort, she knew that she had the best table napkins pinned to her petticoat. She accused the woman sternly—and she had six!]
"Nantucket!" said Tish. "Why Nantucket?"
"I have a niece there, and you said you hated Canada."
"On the contrary," Tish replied, with her eyes partly shut, "I find that my subconscious self has adopted and been working on the Canadian suggestion. What a wonderful thing is this buried and greater ego! Worms, rifles, fishing-rods, 'The Complete Angler,' mosquito netting, canned goods, and sleeping-bags, all in my mind and in orderly array!"
"Worms!" I said, with, I confess, a touch of scorn in my voice. "If you will tell me, Tish Carberry—"
"Life preservers," chanted Tish's subconscious self, "rubber blankets, small tent, folding camp-beds, a camp-stove, a meat-saw, a wood-saw, and some beads and gewgaws for placating the Indians." Then she opened her eyes and took up her knitting. "There are no worms in Canada, Lizzie, just as there are no snakes in Ireland. They were all destroyed during the glacial period."
"There are plenty of worms in the United States," I said with spirit. "I dare say they could crawl over the border—unless, of course, they object to being British subjects."
She ignored me, however, and, getting up, went to one of her bureau drawers. We saw then that her subconscious self had written down lists of various things for the Canadian excursion. There was one headed Foodstuffs. Others were: Necessary Clothing; Camp Outfit; Fishing-Tackle; Weapons of Defense; and Diversions. Under this last heading it had placed binoculars, yarn and needles, life preservers, a prayer-book, and a cribbage-board.
"Boats," she said, "we can secure from the Indians, who make them, I believe, of hollow logs. And I shall rent a motor boat. Hutchins says she can manage one. When she's not doing that she can wash dishes."
[We had been rather chary of motor boats, you may remember, since the time on Lake Penzance, when something jammed on our engine, and we had gone madly round the lake a number of times, with people on various docks trying to lasso us with ropes.]
Considering that it was she who had started the whole thing, and got Tish's subconscious mind to working, Aggie was rather pettish.
"Huh!" she said. "I can't swim, and you know it, Tish. Those canoe things turn over if you so much as sneeze in them."
"You'll not sneeze," said Tish. "The Northern Lights fill the air with ozone."
Aggie looked at me helplessly; but I could do nothing. Only the year before, Tish, as you may recall, had taken us out into the Maine woods without any outfit at all, and we had lived on snared rabbits, and things that no Christian woman ought to put into her stomach. This time we were at least to go provisioned and equipped.
"Where are we going?" Aggie asked.
"Far from a white man," said Tish. "Away from milk wagons and children on velocipedes and the grocer calling up every morning for an order. We'll go to the Far North, Aggie, where the red man still treads his native forests; we'll make our camp by some lake, where the deer come at early morning to drink and fish leap to see the sunset."
Well, it sounded rather refreshing, though I confess that, until Tish mentioned it, I had always thought that fish leaped in the evening to catch mosquitoes.
We sent for Hutchins at once. She was always respectful, but never subservient. She stood in the doorway while Tish explained.
"How far north?" she said crisply. Tish told her. "We'll have no cut-and-dried destination," she said. "There's a little steamer goes up the river I have in mind. We'll get off when we see a likely place."
"Are you going for trout or bass?"
Tish was rather uncertain, but she said bass on a chance, and Hutchins nodded her approval.
"If it's bass, I'll go," she said. "I'm not fond of trout-fishing."
"We shall have a motor boat. Of course I shall not take the car."
Hutchins agreed indifferently. "Don't you worry about the motor boat," she said. "Sometimes they go, and sometimes they don't. And I'll help round the camp; but I'll not wash dishes."
"Why not?" Tish demanded.
"The reason doesn't really matter, does it? What really concerns you is the fact."
Tish stared at her; but instead of quailing before Tish's majestic eye she laughed a little.
"I've camped before," she said. "I'm very useful about a camp. I like to cook; but I won't wash dishes. I'd like, if you don't mind, to see the grocery order before it goes."
Well, Aggie likes to wash dishes if there is plenty of hot water; and Hannah, Tish's maid, refusing to go with us on account of Indians, it seemed wisest to accept Hutchins's services.
Hannah's defection was most unexpected. As soon as we reached our decision, Tish ordered beads for the Indians; and in the evenings we strung necklaces, and so on, while one of us read aloud from the works of Cooper. On the second evening thus occupied, Hannah, who is allowed to come into Tish's sitting-room in the evening and knit, suddenly burst into tears and refused to go.
"My scalp's as good to me as it is to anybody, Miss Tish," she said hysterically; and nothing would move her.
She said she would run no risk of being cooked over her own camp-fire; and from that time on she would gaze at Tish for long periods mournfully, as though she wanted to remember how she looked when she was gone forever.
Except for Hannah, everything moved smoothly. Tish told Charlie Sands about the plan, and he was quite enthusiastic.
"Great scheme!" he said. "Eat a broiled black bass for me. And take the advice of one who knows: don't skimp on your fishing-tackle. Get the best. Go light on the canned goods, if necessary; but get the best reels and lines on the market. Nothing in life hurts so much," he said impressively, "as to get a three-pound bass to the top of the water and have your line break. I've had a big fellow get away like that and chase me a mile with its thumb on its nose." This last, of course, was purely figurative.
He went away whistling. I wish he had been less optimistic. When we came back and told him the whole story, and he sat with his mouth open and his hair, as he said, crackling at the roots, I reminded him with some bitterness that he had encouraged us. His only retort was to say that the excursion itself had been harmless enough; but that if three elderly ladies, church members in good standing, chose to become freebooters and pirates the moment they got away from a corner policeman, they need not blame him.
The last thing he said that day in June was about fishing-worms.
"Take 'em with you," he said. "They charge a cent apiece for them up there, assorted colors, and there's something stolid and British about a Canadian worm. The fish aren't crazy about 'em. On the other hand, our worms here are—er—vivacious, animated. I've seen a really brisk and on-to-its-job United States worm reach out and clutch a bass by the gills."
I believe it was the next day that Tish went to the library and read about worms. Aggie and I had spent the day buying tackle, according to Charlie Sands's advice. We got some very good rods with nickel-plated reels for two dollars and a quarter, a dozen assorted hooks for each person, and a dozen sinkers. The man wanted to sell us what he called a "landing net," but I took a good look at it and pinched Aggie.
"I can make one out of a barrel hoop and mosquito netting," I whispered; so we did not buy it.
Perhaps he thought we were novices, for he insisted on showing us all sorts of absurd things—trolling-hooks, he called them; gaff hooks for landing big fish and a spoon that was certainly no spoon and did not fool us for a minute, being only a few hooks and a red feather. He asked a dollar and a quarter for it!
[I made one that night at home, using a bit of red feather from a duster. It cost me just three cents. Of that, as of Hutchins, more later.]
Aggie, whose idea of Canada had been the Hotel Frontenac, had grown rather depressed as our preparations proceeded. She insisted that night on recalling the fact that Mr. Wiggins had been almost drowned in Canada.
"He went with the Roof and Gutter Club, Lizzie," she said, "and he was a beautiful swimmer; but the water comes from the North Pole, freezing cold, and the first thing he knew—"
The telephone bell rang just then. It was Tish.
"I've just come from the library, Lizzie," she said. "We'd better raise the worms. We've got a month to do it in. Hutchins and I will be round with the car at eight o'clock to-night. Night is the time to get them."
She refused to go into details, but asked us to have an electric flash or two ready and a couple of wooden pails. Also she said to wear mackintoshes and rubbers. Just before she rang off, she asked me to see that there was a package of oatmeal on hand, but did not explain. When I told Aggie she eyed me miserably.
"I wish she'd be either more explicit or less," she said. "We'll be arrested again. I know it!"
[Now and then Tish's enthusiasms have brought us into collision with the law—not that Tish has not every respect for law and order, but that she is apt to be hasty and at times almost unconventional.]
"You remember," said Aggie, "that time she tried to shoot the sheriff, thinking he was a train robber? She started just like this—reading up about walking-tours, and all that. I—I'm nervous, Lizzie."
I was staying with Aggie for a few days while my apartment was being papered. To soothe Aggie's nerves I read aloud from Gibbon's "Rome" until dinner-time, and she grew gradually calmer.
"After all, Lizzie," she said, "she can't get us into mischief with two wooden pails and a package of oatmeal."
Tish and Hutchins came promptly at eight and we got into the car. Tish wore the intent and dreamy look that always preceded her enterprises. There was a tin sprinkling-can, quite new, in the tonneau, and we placed our wooden pails beside it and the oatmeal in it. I confess I was curious, but to my inquiries Tish made only one reply:—
"Worms!"
Now I do not like worms. I do not like to touch them. I do not even like to look at them. As the machine went along I began to have a creepy loathing of them. Aggie must have been feeling the same way, for when my hand touched hers she squealed.
Over her shoulder Tish told her plan. She said it was easy to get fishing-worms at night and that Hutchins knew of a place a few miles out of town where the family was away and where there would be plenty.
"We'll put them in boxes of earth," she said, "and feed them coffee or tea grounds one day and oatmeal water the next. They propagate rapidly. We'll have a million to take with us. If we only have a hundred thousand at a cent apiece, that's a clear saving of a thousand dollars."
"We could sell some," I suggested sarcastically; for Tish's enthusiasms have a way of going wrong.
But she took me seriously. "If there are any fishing clubs about," she said, "I dare say they'll buy them; and we can turn the money over to Mr. Ostermaier for the new organ."
Tish had bought the organ and had an evening concert with it before we turned off the main road into a private drive.
"This is the place," Hutchins said laconically.
Tish got out and took a survey. There was shrubbery all round and a very large house, quite dark, in the foreground.
"Drive onto the lawn, Hutchins," she said. "When the worms come up, the lamps will dazzle them and they'll be easy to capture."
We bumped over a gutter and came to a stop in the middle of the lawn.
"It would be better if it was raining," Tish said. "You know, yourself, Lizzie, how they come up during a gentle rain. Give me the sprinkling-can."
I do not wish to lay undue blame on Hutchins, who was young; but it was she who suggested that there would probably be a garden hose somewhere and that it would save time. I know she went with Tish round the corner of the house, and that they returned in ten minutes or so, dragging a hose.
"I broke a tool-house window," Tish observed, "but I left fifty cents on the sill to replace it. It's attached at the other end. Run back, Hutchins, and turn on the water; but not too much. We needn't drown the little creatures."
Well, I have never seen anything work better. Aggie, who had refused to put a foot out of the car, stood up in it and held the hose. As fast as she wet a bit of lawn, we followed with the pails. I spread my mackintosh out and knelt on it.
As fast as she wet a bit of lawn, we followed with the pailsAs fast as she wet a bit of lawn, we followed with the pails
The thing took skill. The worms had a way of snapping back into their holes like lightning.
Tish got about three to my one, and talked about packing them in moss and ice, and feeding them every other day. Hutchins, however, stood on the lawn, with her hands in her pockets, and watched the house.
Suddenly, without warning, Aggie turned the hose directly on my left ear and held it there.
"There's somebody coming!" she cried. "Merciful Heavens, what'll I do with the hose?"
"You can turn it away from me!" I snapped.
So she did, and at that instant a young man emerged from the shrubbery.
He did not speak at once. Probably he could not. I happened to look at Hutchins, and, for all her usualsavoir-faire, as Charlie Sands called it, she was clearly uncomfortable.
Tish, engaged in a struggle at that moment and sitting back like a robin, did not see him at once.
"Well!" said the young man; and again: "Well, upon my word!"
He seemed out of breath with surprise; and he took off his hat and mopped his head with a handkerchief. And, of course, as though things were not already bad enough, Aggie sneezed at that instant, as she always does when she is excited; and for just a second the hose was on him.
It was unexpected and he almost staggered. He looked at all of us, including Hutchins, and ran his handkerchief round inside his collar. Then he found his voice.
"Really," he said, "this is awfully good of you. We do need rain—don't we?"
Tish was on her feet by that time, but she could not think of anything to say.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," said the young man. "I—I'm a bit startled myself."
"There is nothing to make a fuss about!" said Hutchins crisply. "We are getting worms to go fishing."
"I see," said the young man. "Quite natural, I'm sure. And where are you going fishing?"
Hutchins surprised us all by rudely turning her back on him. Considering we were on his property and had turned his own hose on him, a little tact would have been better.
Tish had found her voice by that time. "We broke a window in the tool-house," she said; "but I put fifty cents on the sill."
"Thank you," said the young man.
Hutchins wheeled at that and stared at him in the most disagreeable fashion; but he ignored her.
"We are trespassing," said Tish; "but I hope you understand. We thought the family was away."
"I just happened to be passing through," he explained. "I'm awfully attached to the place—for various reasons. Whenever I'm in town I spend my evenings wandering through the shrubbery and remembering—er—happier days."
"I think the lamps are going out," said Hutchins sharply. "If we're to get back to town—"
"Ah!" he broke in. "So you have come out from the city?"
"Surely," said Hutchins to Tish, "it is unnecessary to give this gentleman any information about ourselves! We have done no damage—"
"Except the window," he said.
"We've paid for that," she said in a nasty tone; and to Tish: "How do we know this place is his? He's probably some newspaper man, and if you tell him who you are this whole thing will be in the morning paper, like the eggs."
"I give you my word of honor," he said, "that I am nothing of the sort; in fact, if you will give me a little time I'd—I'd like to tell all about myself. I've got a lot to say that's highly interesting, if you'll only listen."
Hutchins, however, only gave him a cold glance of suspicion and put the pails in the car. Then she got in and sat down.
"I take it," he said to her, "that you decline either to give or to receive any information."
"Absolutely!"
He sighed then, Aggie declares.
"Of course," he said, "though I haven't really the slightest curiosity, I could easily find out, you know. Your license plates—"
"Are under the cushion I'm sitting on," said Hutchins, and started the engine.
"Really, Hutchins," said Tish, "I don't see any reason for being so suspicious. I have always believed in human nature and seldom have I been disappointed. The young man has done nothing to justify rudeness. And since we are trespassing on his place—"
"Huh!" was all Hutchins said.
The young man sauntered over to the car, with his hands thrust into this coat pockets. He was nice-looking, especially then, when he was smiling.
"Hutchins!" he said. "Well, that's a clue anyhow. It—it's an uncommon name. You didn't happen to notice a large 'No-Trespassing!' sign by the gate, did you?"
Hutchins only looked ahead and ignored him. As Tish said afterward, we had a good many worms, anyhow; and, as the young man and Hutchins had clearly taken an awful dislike to each other at first sight, the best way to avoid trouble was to go home. So she got into the car. The young man helped her and took off his hat.
"Come out any time you like," he said affably. "I'm not here at all in the daytime, and the grounds are really rather nice. Come out and get some roses. We've some pretty good ones—English importations. If you care to bring some children from the tenements out for a picnic, please feel free to do it. We're not selfish."
Hutchins rudely started the car before he had finished; but he ignored her and waved a cordial farewell to the rest of us.
"Bring as many as you like," he called. "Sunday is a good day. Ask Miss—Miss Hutchins to come out and bring some friends along."
We drove back at the most furious rate. Tish was at last compelled to remonstrate with Hutchins.
"Not only are we going too fast," she said, "but you were really rude to that nice young man."
"I wish I had turned the hose on him and drowned him!" said Hutchins between her teeth.