TERMS
Thesudden abandonment of the Terence O'Brien crusade by Minga and Dunstan cast a chill over the other plotters and a sort of obstinate silence settled down on the young intruders on Watts Shipman's privacy. One of the boys got up, put his hands in his pockets and walked aimlessly about, kicking at pebbles and whistling; the girls' voices took on drawling inflections of careless indifference. The young lawyer tried some professional small talk that sounded oddly in the poetic surroundings of forest moonlight to which the senior listened without much interest. Shipman, with an amused sense of liking to see these calm young persons at a disadvantage, wondered if they would not under the awkward stress of the thing develop a few sensibilities, but he allowed the moment to remain as clumsy as it might be.
The only one who realized the man's inner comment was Sard; she it was who had fretted helplessly at the inopportune behavior of her girl friend; nettled, she now resolved that the meeting should be opened and she moved a little on the log where she sat.
Watts rose and gravely motioned her to take his abandoned seat. "You see the river better from there," he urged. "Rather nice in the moonlight, don't you think? You know Drake's 'Culprit Fay'?Of course, such a delicate poem, made of shells and straws and fairies' wings with this monster stream for background"—he shrugged, scanning the girl's face, saying lightly,—"Do you suppose all this beauty really got through the Dutchman's skin, or did it lie dormant till Irving brought it to life? A pity, after those 'historic fires of liberty,' and a young woman's college adorning it, and all the tremendous striking events of its history, that this river's chief ornaments should be a prison, a military academy and a lot of rich men's homes! Have you ever thought," went on Shipman purposefully, "what a marvelous thing it would be if we could have heroic statuary all along our river banks, really heroic statuary, sculpture of the great deeds of discovery, the statues of men who invented things for human good, great inventors, great mothers, great scientists, great writers, great explorers; not a single statue that should spell wars or the glory of wars, but all the superb names that bear witness to the everlasting wonder and glory and forward looking of Human Life."
Of course, this exhortation was to put her at her ease. The girl recognized this, and while she hardly heard the words of the man standing there, she thanked him mentally. As Sard met Shipman's eyes she tried to look as if she, at least, had completely forgotten the Minga incident. Anyway, Sard had seen things like that happen to Minga before. Only, in all those two years at college, reflected the girl, Minga had never been so completely, so lamentably driven from her accustomed aplomb. The thing didnot make Sard like the great man any too well, but the memory of the figure of poor Dora at her work, the sense of a boy of Dunce's age going to prison "for life," these things spurred her on to what she had to say.
"Perhaps we ought to apologize for coming up here like this," began the girl tentatively, "but," she laughed a little, "I don't think we will."
"I cannot imagine your having ever to apologize." Watts' eyes were upon her, the expression in them very different from that with which he had subdued Minga. He looked a sort of wondering admiration, as a man may at the young face and figure so exquisitely balanced in so complete a dignity. To Watts' keen knowledge of human personality, Sard spelled clarity, essential purity; but it was not ignorant purity nor insulated clarity. It was the healthy nerve and sparkle of an original daring nature, something direct and vigorous that went straight to its interests and issues in a direct, fresh way, that looked things in the face and tackled them in front.
"We,"—Sard looked around at her rather ineffectual supporters,—"we believe that you can help us about something—someone—Terence O'Brien," the girl blurted it out to the famous lawyer with a little catch of the breath. Her voice, naturally liquid, was a little husky, but she held herself admirably.
"The man who is held for murder?" the lawyer's voice was grave.
"The boy,"—with ever so slight an insistence on "the boy,"—"who killed that old cobbler." Sardglanced eagerly into Watts' face. "We have been talking about it, all of us, a great deal; all Willow Roads is excited over it because he is so young." The girl hesitated a moment, then she said simply, "I haven't been able to discuss it with my father but——" Sard paused; something she had not reckoned with of embarrassment seemed to thicken her throat, but she plunged bravely on. "Life sentence is what everyone thinks he will get, life sentence." Her hand went out with a curious despairing little gesture that Watts noted with concern. She turned on him dark eyes, womanly, tragic. "Life! Have we—has anyone the right to take from anyone so young the chance to try again?"
The lawyer instinctively admired the girl for her directness, and he met her with equal directness. "No," he said, "we haven't, no one has, under any circumstances, the right to take life but in such cases we choose a lesser evil instead of a perfect good. Here the problem is that this boy, for a small amount of money, wantonly killed an old man, who had befriended him, trusted him; 'murder,'" said Watts emphatically, "is on his soul—do you think he would have strength to live again?"
It was stated very simply, but with such unadorned clearness that Sard shivered. Shipman, without speaking, got up and went into the house, presently emerging with some light steamer rugs and Italian blankets, one of which he drew around Sard's shoulders. He motioned in a big brotherly way to the somewhat subdued girls of the party, "I'm afraidyou're all cold. Shall we go in? Haven't you sweaters or something?"
But something stiff in this little party made them refuse to enter the house; it might almost have been that this strange man who lived in the organ builder's house had so impressed them by a sense of inherent personal power that they felt actually safer outdoors. Anyway, Minga, the little scarlet leader of all their pranks and escapades, their rather elaborately planned defiances and simulated viciousness, had been shamed by this man. Sard, it seemed, also remembered it; however, she did not refuse the Italian blanket, though she let it slip to her knees. The lawyer noted this, and the corners of his mouth moved slightly.
He turned to the younger practitioner of his profession. "It is an ugly case," he remarked gravely. "The way it was done," he made a gesture of disgust, "the boy must have something essentially sneaky and cold in him. There are natures like that," he turned to Sard, "natures that you could hardly, with all your imagination, realize or comprehend."
So the group sat in the moonlight discussing the thing. One by one the lawyer drew the young philanthropists out. Under the rather marked paucity of expression he found the same impulse, the broad human wish to give this boy, caught like a fly in the net of the law, "another chance." Watts quietly relaxed, sat there in the moonlight, studying the sober young faces. Finally he spoke the thing that had first of all come into his mind.
"Perhaps I ought not to ask this," turning to Sard,"but your father, in this county, is the Law and Prophets. The country people dote on his judgments; they trust him; somehow I should think no lawyer would influence his decision, no jury's verdict interfere with his sentence. He, I should think in talking with you, would be able to make you feel the essential inevitability of the thing."
There was silence as the group faced him, such deep solemnity on the young faces that Shipman all but laughed; the lawyer, accustomed as he was to studying all phases of human conduct, found himself amazed at the unanimity of serious purposes underlying this group that he knew to be the most unruly, unpromising of all unpromising small-town groups.
"Judge Bogart is an infallible man," he repeated softly. "His suggestions——" It was evident that the lawyer expected a "suggestion" from Judge Bogart's daughter.
But it was as if Sard had hardly heard him. At last: "My father prefers not to discuss these things with us." The girl said it very quietly and there was no hint of criticism of her father, but she went on thoughtfully, "Perhaps, though, he belongs to something that is becoming worn out," again she made the curious despairing little gesture, "mightn't it be possible that some day all these things will be changed, that there will be no more 'life sentences,' that we who come after will see the way to make things better, fairer?"
Shipman laughed a little ironically; he turned to the young lawyer. "How would Miss Bogart like itif she had to give the life sentences?" he asked lightly, but the girl had her answer ready and she gave it with a powerful conviction that arrested him.
"I should not want to live myself," she said in low, distinct tones. "I should not want to live if I thought we should always have to have crime in the world." Sard faced him a little defiantly; she was remembering the voice of poor Dora in the kitchen. "Is it justice," I ask you, "is it justice to take a young boy like that, take him for life, never give him another chance?"
Another of the group now spoke up. "Lots of men and women are at large who ought to be in prison."
Watts smiled. "Lots of boats do sink on the sea, but that is no reason why we should build our boats so that they will sink. Law, you see, is society's effort to protect its best from its worst." He looked interestedly at the young speaker. "You couldn't marry and have a home without law," curiously studying the boy.
"And I couldn't get a divorce without law, some kinds," grinned the cub. It was a technical retort, the typical "smart" answer of the up-to-date youngster. It gave his group courage; there were various asides among the members of the circle, a few titters and smothered witticisms.
Shipman rather enjoyed the little drama being enacted before him; he smoked imperturbably while he appeared to give this answer thought. "I suppose we ought to remember that the law that makes divorce possible rose first in the minds of men and women,"he said evenly. "But we must ask ourselves how well those minds are instructed. In any case, I take it, the law, no matter how badly interpreted, is society's weapon against itself! New laws put upon paper and framed by act of Legislature or of Congress are to counteract certain old laws which were inadequate. When I insisted that your little friend extinguish her cigarette," the lawyer gravely searched the darkening faces in the moonlight, "it was merely to enforce a law which makes forest fires less probable. When I enact a law that separates a good woman from a bad man or vice versa, I protect the weaker against the stronger; when I support a law that insists that a boy's liberty be taken from him, after a dastardly murder, I make it possible for people to move about with varying degrees of safety from like murder. It is not my affair if these laws are not modified. It is for you and people like you to keep laws and by keeping them gain the power to make better ones."
The circle, a little daunted by his calm willingness to discuss, were disposed to receive this without comment. The little lawyer in the owl glasses kicked rather disconsolately at a bunch of turf, the other lads fidgeted. Somehow the crusade to intercede on behalf of Terence O'Brien had lost its moving-picture sensationalism. They realized that they had run up against a quiet man of steel and iron, who was more or less amused and not very impressed by them; there were murmurings and half-formed suggestions that they should leave until Sard, with a kind of resolution, rose suddenly from her seat and stood in front ofShipman. She looked directly into his face and he saw determination in her; the sort that does and dies, but does not abandon its object.
"I—I believe you are kind," said the girl, in a low questioning tone.
The man, a little surprised, waited gravely.
Sard spoke rather timidly. "I understand how you and other lawyers look at these things, by rote, sort of, isn't it? And you forget it is men and women you deal with; only 'cases' and knotty 'points,' isn't that true?"
Watts, rather piqued, bowed in answer.
"And I know," said Sard quickly—"it seems queer to ask it, but you, a man of your power, could influence a country jury, couldn't you, from your way of putting a thing, from your knowledge of how to speak to the point? Would you," the girl looked eagerly into the half-shadowed face, "would you be willing to appear for Terry's defense if—we—we paid you any fee you asked? I think we could get the money some way." The girl was clearly nervous now; her breath came a little quicker as she stood her ground, saying simply, helplessly, "Would you?"
Watts marveled at her. This man knew the way a person with a deep conviction always acted, and no one more solemnly respected conviction. It was the steady return to the subject in hand, the resolute persistence, in spite of every objection and obstacle, that won the great lawyer's respect and admiration. Suddenly a gleam came over his face and he rose, standing as Sard stood, answering her as simply. "Youhave interested me," he said quietly; "it is true that I am here for a season of rest, but if the trial comes off, as I think you said, in the early fall, I believe it will be held in your father's jurisdiction."
Sard nodded, her eyes fixed upon him.
The lawyer stood, his hands in his coat pockets, his eyes on the ground, considering. Suddenly he looked up and addressed the wide-eyed circle. "I should ask one sort of fee only."
This consent of itself was so sudden, so unhoped for, that a thrill went around the group; someone in the circle fairly gasped. Casual, indulged, the young people had hardly tackled the question of a great lawyer's fee; the youngsters waited, jaws dropping to hear the spokesman's answer.
"From you," Shipman turned to Sard, "I should only ask coöperation along lines which we will work out together; from you," turning to the little lawyer, "I must beg the privilege of an occasional conference."
The little owl-eyed bowed a solemn and somewhat puffed-up acknowledgment. But Shipman, with eyes enigmatic, turned upon the rest of the group, "I feel that to obtain a—er—certain solidarity, that my fee should come from all of you. Taxing each one of you a certain percentage per month would, of course, make a hole in your allowances——"
Instantly the curious derisive protest went up. The group had grown gradually less in awe of the great man. Now they openly rebelled while they were half agreed. Those whose murmurings were in earnestwere smothered by their companions who bade them be "sports." At last someone stepped forward gracefully, offering his hand. It was the youth with the new blue car. Watts gripped his young paw with liking. The others then followed in rapid succession. "Good-bye, chocolate sundaes," said somebody with a groan. "Where do we get off, at the poorhouse?" asked another cub. "Farewell, my wrist-watch, good-bye, golf caddies; me for the lessening waistband," they giggled and shuffled and hooted their dismay, knowing well that what the man before them asked was no real hardship, yet making their reluctance very evident. Watts noted with wonder, however, that in this, as in everything else, they kept to their squad formation, one man having agreed, all agreed. Someone then suggested gruffly that it was time to depart. With awkward leave-taking and self-conscious thanks they finally took themselves away.
All but Sard, who hesitated in the lull occasioned by the departing group, again callow, vociferous, with a sense of restraint removed.
Shipman, an enigmatic expression on his face, turned to her and held out his hand. "Will you forgive me?"
The girl, wondering, hesitated, but Shipman, the fine cool hand once in his, did not let it go too quickly. "I have treated your friends pretty meanly," he said, "but I wanted to see if they really mean anything."
The girl returned his gaze; for the first time he saw challenge in the fine young eyes, and his own leaped to their full power.
"You saw?" asked Sard coolly.
Shipman threw back his head, but his laugh was not quite as assured as usual.
"You haven't forgiven me!" He pretended amusement.
"Perhaps," said the girl, a little bitterly, remembering his earlier remarks, "I have to protect society from you." The lawyer winced; his hand quickly relinquished hers and dropped to his side.
"You mean?" he said quickly; the man took a step forward, staring into her face—"I wonder what you do mean."
"Good-night," said Sard, her voice quivered a little, but she made the effort to be businesslike, "you will let me know what you can in connection with the case, with Terence," then a sudden little impulsive softening, "I do thank you. I know that you have been kind and patient with us." She motioned to the solemn-eyed one waiting at a little distance for her. "I must hurry. Good-night!"
They shook hands again, this time a something of liking between them, and Shipman watched the girl step confidently out of his wondering observation.
Car after car curved away down the steep road, young voice after young voice died on the midnight mountain echoes, but until very late indeed a man stood looking out upon the moonlit Hudson, and it seemed to Watts Shipman that the whole mountain said, that all the trees and rocks and stars and ripples said to each other one significant word and that word was "Youth."
THE MAN ON THE PLACE
"Willyou do something for me?" Sard had asked Minga on the day of her friend's arrival. Later she had made the request that Minga lead up to the subject of Terence O'Brien; only because she had lost the courage to speak of the thing that those days was continually in her mind; namely, the mystery of the new man Colter. He, who busied himself quietly all day about the drives and shrubberies and caring for the cars, and who, at night, she saw strolling around to the garden seat to listen to the music of the Judge's pet records. But now, after a comradeship of two weeks, much of Sard's restraint had vanished, so that as the two girls glided in the little roadster out of Bogart's drive one morning and Minga asked curiously, "What was that thing, Sardy, that you were going to tell me?" her friend's answering laugh was less conscious than it might have been.
"Oh, I want you to pass on a discovery of mine; something I've got out in the garage."
"A pup?" Minga was politely interrogative.
Sard bent to shift gears; she smiled cryptically. "No, no, not a dog; but I picked it up and brought it home the way one would a badly used dog. It's partly Aunt Reely's pet, too," added Sard gravely; "she gives him advice, but I found him."
"A turtle," guessed Minga idly; "one doesn't give a turtle advice, though, does one? Oh," she turned an accusing face on her friend, "I'll bet it is just that horrid old man, a plain, dirty tramp." Immediately the little figure in scarlet lost interest, and as the car glided softly along the river road and up toward the little valley village of Morris, Sard frowned thoughtfully. "Just the same, I want you to pass on him," said the older girl; "he's rather a strange specimen, Minga." Asked her friend abruptly, "Have you ever seen a case of amnesia?"
Minga, wrinkling her brows, remembered that there was a girl who studied too hard at college and she had amnesia and couldn't remember to put her clothes on properly. "That," said Minga, with emphasis, "made me decide right then that I would never study too hard. But I never saw any amnesia," added Minga. "Is it anything like asthma?"
"It's like the light going out of your head, I guess," said Sard, "and the paths of your mind don't lead home; don't lead to the You that knows you; and it will make all the yous suddenly run into each other, and you are suddenly lost. For instance, I could have amnesia so that I could see you, but there wouldn't be any me. You know, the recognition part of me would be all thin air, and objects stuck in it like houses and men and women that meant nothing. I've been reading it up," explained Sard.
Minga shivered. "Don't describe such awful things," she begged.
"But it's interesting." There was a reflective lightin the other's eyes. "I was born to be a psychologist, I guess, because such things interest me. Think, for instance, of not knowing who one is, or one's own people! Or perhaps standing right in front of one's home and not recognizing it! Such things happen. Like doors closing on the room where the mind used to live, and turning the mind out into a cold new world where it can't take hold, where it has words and intelligence, but no recognitions."
"Wow!" Minga twisted an unwilling shoulder. "Stop talking about it. Shut up!"
"Well," argued Sard, "that's what I think is the matter with that man we've got right before our eyes. Dad and Aunt Reely say it isn't so, of course; they say I imagine too much." A very slight irritation crept into the sober young face that scanned the road ahead. "Older people go in for peace and comfort more than anything else, don't they?"
"I think maybe it's more just public opinion," said Minga, rather penetratingly for her rattle brain. "Older people get used to what their set says and does, and it just becomes sort of home life for them and they don't want anything else. They refuse to get out and think outside of what that set thinks and does, because it wouldn't be cosy; it's like going out on a winter trail when everybody is home sitting by the fire. They want to sit by the fire. They don't want to progress."
"It wouldn't be 'popular,' I suppose." Sard avoided a bump. "It's funny, but I keep thinking that if anygood things are to be accomplished we'll have to get rid of popularity."
"Well, I shan't," said Minga. "Popularity? You can't get anywhere in America unless you are popular; but," the little philosopher added solemnly, "isn't it queer, Sard, that—that we all, you and I and all of us, have got to run the world some day whether we want to or not? Everybody else will be dead—all the aunts and fathers and mothers," Minga shivered a little—"and we, we shall have to sign the bills and give the sentences and be responsible." Minga looked dreamingly at the wind-shield and at the cars flashing by them. She clearly did not like the prospect.
The older girl nodded. Sard guided her car up to the curb in front of the little Morris bank.
"What are you going in for?"
Sard flashed a smile. "Well, I—I am going in to pay Mr. Lowden, that's the cashier, some money I borrowed the day I found this man Colter. You see," added Sard casually, "I found him in the gutter up here in Morris and I had no place to take him to nor any money and Mr. Lowden managed for me. He seemed to know what to do." Sard got out and leaned against the car. Her straight, slim personality in its turquoise blue cap and scarf was a lively bit of poised youth; she stood twinkling into Minga's perturbed eyes as she said:
"Oh, you'll have to get used to my queer people that I try to rescue," then, "when we go back I'm going to take you to the garage and show Colter toyou and then you've got to put on your thinking cap and tell me what has happened to him and what he is!"
"Of all things," breathed little Minga with disgust, "and there's a rip in your sleeve, too," she added in tones of injury. "Sard, don't go and get queer and interested in things that awful way that some girls do." Minga was clearly aggrieved.
But Sard had run up the bank steps and turned in the direction of the cashier's office. Through the plate glass window she bowed to the president; his massive head and broad low brow and deep-set eyes emphasized a rather unusual type of the quiet country gentleman. Stepping into the partitioned consulting-room the girl found someone already in conference with the cashier. It was Watts Shipman. Sard drew back. "Oh, I'm intruding." She was hesitant.
"No, indeed;" both men rose with cordial insistence. "I was just going," said Shipman reassuringly.
The girl flushed. "I can come back again," then something steadying her, to the cashier, "I wanted to settle with you, Mr. Lowden, about our man Colter. You were so kind that day, you helped me so wonderfully." She smiled a little shyly. "For a moment I didn't know what to do."
The man made courteous deprecation. "I was so glad to be of service." Anticipating the girl's wish, he put a slip of paper into her hand, and Sard read it interestedly, her brows raised.
"This can't be all. He was two nights at thatboarding-house, I think, and his clothes were pressed and laundered—and—someone got him shoes——"
"Just the same," the young fellow laughed, "that's all it is. I strongly suspect, Miss Bogart, that the village philanthropists were as much interested in your case as you were, only," he sighed a little, "you took the lead. You were the real Samaritan; the rest of us might—well, it is just possible we could have passed that man day after day until he dropped dead from neglect and exhaustion. The doctor said it was only a question of a few hours more without food."
"You would have believed he was a tramp," excused Sard. Though she knew it was no excuse.
"But you knew that he was not a tramp," said the man quietly. Then as he gravely acknowledged the sum Sard laid on the desk, "Does he grow more coherent?"
Sard looked grateful for this intelligent interest, so different from the sensational kind manifested by other acquaintances. "He just works," she said thoughtfully, "works and reads and says very little. He almost never goes to the kitchen as the other men we employ do, and he reads a great deal and takes long walks. He knows the countryside thoroughly and if you ask him questions about flowers, he tells you queer scientific things, and—and——" she hesitated.
The look of interest on the face of the lawyer sitting here made the girl pause; an inherent reticence in Sard was a noticeable characteristic. Before Shipmanshe was on her guard; with a little nod she turned and was gone.
The two men, admiring, noted the quick decision, the arrest of confidence, and smiled at each other.
"It was Miss Bogart who headed my cavalcade last night," said Shipman, "and she was spokeswoman for the O'Brien matter. Has she, do you think, much influence with her father?"
The young cashier put his finger-tips together. "With Bogart? Did you ever know anyone who ever had any influence with Bogart? You don't know the man; he's not modern in any sense. He has the hard and fixed ideas of crime and punishment. He believes in the Example. Punishment is his fetich. From his point of view, if he gives this young chap a life sentence, fewer old men will get shot in the back. That's Bogart's point of view." The cashier ruminated for a few moments, then added, "any jury knows it and plays upon it."
His visitor nodded, then smiled a rather dry smile. "It might, however, eventually mean more old men shot in the back," he said. Then rising, "Well, I've enjoyed our talk and thanks for helping me out with this scheme of the ransoming of Terence, by that young crowd. It is funny, but it is significant, and they mean business. They will pay a certain sum per head into your hands Saturday nights, and it goes into the O'Brien fund." The lawyer hesitated, adding in a low voice, "I need not tell you that I cannot save the chap. I know that he did the thing, but I mean to try and get a shorter sentence, twenty years perhaps,"he shrugged his shoulders, adding, "and you and I know precisely what a man's life is worth after twenty years in prison."
"How about a game of golf on the Wedgewood course to-morrow? You want to get your revenge?"
They shook hands on it; the younger man looked into the dark eyes, so full of human kindness, yet so austere and lonely.
"Watts Shipman," the young cashier said slowly, "what are you doing up there on that mountain? Anything you shouldn't—home brew,—sirens?"
The lawyer laughed; he caught up his riding crop. "Come up and see; walk up, do you good to climb that far; no wine, no women, not even some of our best suppressed literature. I'm—I'm just trying," the lawyer threw back his head and drew a deep breath, "to get hold of life, real life, the kind of thing that eludes men until too late they turn and clutch for it."
The other laughed. "And so you saw wood and wash your own dishes? Wonderful realization of life!"
Shipman's mouth twisted into appreciation of the thing. "I've got a vegetable garden—raise nearly all my own produce. I've planted it in terraces half down the mountainside the way the Greeks do in Thessaly. That's a wonderful scheme for natural irrigation. Anyway," the lawyer squared away and delivered a teasing punch on his friend's chest, "I've got back a good digestion and can stretch like a tiger and feel the morning sun along my bare flanksand—and I can laugh heartily, and I've forgotten the smell of money and I've gone back to a boyish repugnance for dirty things and lying things and under-handed things." The older man cast a penetrating look into the very stuff of his friend. "Isn't it up to us to create new standards?" he asked squarely; "are you satisfied with the old? I'm not! I want clean standards, but I want 'em built on facts, not on calendar mottoes."
The other shook his head. "So do I," he said in a low tone, "but," he waved his hand to the street outside, "do you see much out there that looks like new standards? It's the calendar motto still." For a moment the two men stood in the window reading the street like a book on which figures of men and women like words told the story of the vicinity. Morris's mild, plainly-dressed women doing the morning's marketing, face, features and walk betokening a certain niggardliness with life; a complacent adjustment to the best that has been instead of an insistence upon the best that shall be. Occasional handsome cars holding peevish city faces come to the country for a great poison herb, Novelty. Young people flitting about in droves driven by insatiability and their peculiar disease, leisure and unapplied brains. One or two old forms tottering in the sunshine, pleased, interested with little trivial occurrences, yet powerful, holding the power of prestige. The usual village types, the static parson, the elastic politician, the loafers on the corner, the nameless village woman, the scoundrel village man, the sanctimonious gossips,the schools at twelve pouring out of their hoppers the little victims of all whatever good or ill might be; up and down the streets, these forms, symbols of life, moved and went about their business. But no matter what they spelled in between they wrote irrevocably on the pavements, Greed, and also Fear, and Popularity. They did not write Progress.
Watts, his dark face turned on the others, looked inquiringly. "The same as Athens under Pericles, I suppose?" he questioned. "The great souls come and go and agonize and cry in the wilderness, and the little souls determine what shall be." He held out his hand once more and the other gripped it.
"You talk like a man-Cassandra," the cashier grumbled, "but I'm coming up on your old mountain top to hear some more of your wild stuff."
As Shipman passed down the bank steps he saw the Bogart car sail by and the two tams, the red and the blue, bobbed gaily at him. "See you at the dance next Saturday." It was Minga who called this carelessly. It was the same Minga who a few nights ago on the mountain top had told Watts Shipman she hated him. Now her vivid face framed in its blowing curls looked calm appreciation. The Bunch were "for" Watts; also the big club dance was in the air; her instinct for collecting partners bade her forget the cigarette episode. Watts, while he raised his eyebrows, gestured enthusiastically. Sard also waved her hand, and the flash of her deep eyes got to the man in a way she might not have intended. For a moment he stood and looked after them down the principallittle street of Morris. It was the blue tam-o'-shanter that still filled his vision.
"Blue ran the flash across," he quoted thoughtfully. But it was not of blue violets that the great lawyer was thinking; it was of personality, of personality that was like a flame, flashing across dullness and smugness and cheap pride, to what cost? Watts Shipman, climbing to his mountain top, questioned, for no man knew better than he the painful cost of honest personality.
PEARS AND POETRY
Outtoward the rear of the Judge's place there were garden paths set about with horny fruit trees. A small plot of low-growing vegetables; a strip of turf and a square of bean poles, made a jungle of kitchen produce. As the season advanced, early summer pears of a soft yellow, rosy-cheeked sort, began to hang in globules on the gray-flaked trees. Here Colter sometimes worked under the Judge's snapped comments, or sat at luncheon hour, preferring to eat here rather than in the comfortable kitchen; and here, because of its almost jungle-like inaccessibility, Sard, wandering from the house, would sometimes sit in the long slumberous grasses and read. No one else cared much for the vegetable plot nor for the yellow pears. Miss Aurelia stayed away on the ground of wasps; the Judge found that the grass ruined his highly polished boots; the cook and the waitresses had prejudices connected with snakes, but Sard wondered if the "man on the place" ever saw, as she, lying on her back, sometimes saw, the romance of this nook. The tent of the blue sky, the silken whir of birds winging through, the syncopatic throb of life in the grass all around, the Dervish-like attitude of the old treesholding in faithful remembrance of youth and blossoms their honey-filled pots of gold.
It was at the noon hour that the two girls came to pick up windfalls. They waded through the long grass lamenting the great dark bruises on the soft pear shapes.
"One smashing fall, and a whole lovely pear is spoiled," complained Minga.
"Something like people," Sard thought; "one bruise makes us say a pear is 'spoiled.' A person does some one thing that isn't right, and then as it has with Terence, it spreads out and out and we think of him not as having his other good qualities, but of just that one thing. Terence might have been a good horse trainer or a good pianist or a ship's captain or anything that needs recklessness and short swift purpose, but he has done the one great awful thing that blots out all those other qualities and that makes him for all time just a murderer."
The girl thoughtfully stood, her head drooping and her face deep with a curious shadow of tragedy that was partly inherited. Sard felt sure that somewhere in her ancestry were people who cared in some deep way for humanity, who agonized and were sorry as she was for all the sadness and madness of the world. The thought comforted her. Now, as she picked up pear after pear and caught sight of Colter kneeling, busy putting ashes around the roots of blackberry vines, she called to him.
"Are the blackberries ripening?"
Colter slowly rose. Minga, standing lost in a stareof curiosity, saw the tall, straight, loosely-built figure and finely modeled face with its thin and curiously yearning line from cheek to jaw. The eyes of a hot blue were very intense, and the curious backward swath of deep chestnut hair made an unusual setting for the chiseling of a face that, while it was still young, was curiously marred with suffering, yet had something of debonair quality that the girl was too immature to analyze. Minga, hardly knowing why she did so, looked at the hands closed easily on the garden rake. Even to her crude perception they were disciplined hands with the signs of other than coarse toil upon them.
Colter, in answering the question, advanced toward them. Both girls were conscious of the clean, trim set effect of the working shirt on his well-built frame; the tie was exact under his soft collar. His voice when he spoke was low, with a weak, shaky emphasis, but he answered Sard's question interestedly, "I think these berries could be greatly improved. The vines have grown full of dead wood. I've done a little cutting away, and perhaps with better soil treatment," he nodded to the pears, "they're very fine just now. Judge Bogart wants me to take a basket of them up to Mrs. Ralling. She lives on the upper road, I think."
Perhaps there is nothing so surely indicative of certain training and breeding as the pronunciation of proper names, particularly names that have R and L in them. The foreigner in our country slurs these letters with childlike confidence. The badly-bred person, ear untrained to niceties of speech, furs the R and gobbles the L and chews his vowels. These are the curious unconscious ways by which the American shows his contempt of all distinguished nuances. Colter, so the two young girls observed, did none of these things. Neither did he employ the over-stressed nicety, the too careful method of the person who has not always spoken correctly. What he had to say he said gently, half thoughtfully. He stood looking at the girls without familiarity, but he showed no constraint.
"I found your book, Miss Bogart." Colter drew the volume out of his coat hanging on a pear tree.
Sard reached eagerly for it. "Then I did leave it out here!"
She turned to Minga. "I was reading it here the day before you came—all this time in the grass, my 'Oxford Book of Verse,'" Sard, a true book-lover, examined the little volume affectionately. "The leaves don't seem to be hurt, and yet it rained two nights ago." She looked at Colter. "You took care of it?"
He smiled in a pleased sort of way. "It was pretty well dampened, but I found a way to dry it without streaking. I," he hesitated, "I know a little about the treatment of wet paper." Colter looked off, knitting his brows thoughtfully.
Minga, uninterested, was turning away, but the gardener nodded at the book. "I've been reading some things in there I like. I wonder if you would let me have it a little longer?"
There was dignity in the man's voice, yet a curious pleading note as if he asked to be allowed to hold on to something very necessary to him.
"I—I once owned this book," he explained, then stood seemingly plunged in thought, hardly noticing the two girls who stared at him.
"Surely." Sard made her free gesture as she handed him back the little volume. "Keep it as long as you like," said the girl in friendly fashion, "and, Colter——"
The man paused, respectfully attentive.
"Don't you want some other things to read?" Sard's eyes, friendly with interest, were upon him. She was unconscious, sympathetic. "I know Father would let you have anything in his library."
"I'll bet anything Judgie would not," was Minga's inner comment.
A curious look came over the man's face. As he stood there, the sunlight on the russet hair, there came into his eyes a quality of pleasure and bright response, of good will and courteous deference that was the unmistakable look of personality. But it was momentary. The two girls, young, not very well versed in subtle shades of breeding, stood staring curiously at him. Then suddenly they saw the look transform; a dull expression, a sort of hunted suspicion settled on the sensitive features; and it was only a garden hand in baggy trousers and sun-faded gray shirt that stood before them; something had faded out of the man.
Faltering at the mystery of it, Sard tried to repeather offer. "I meant," she said awkwardly, "you seemed to care so for books."
"Thank you," said Colter quietly. "I will leave your book in the kitchen."
It was done with so final an air that there was nothing for the girl to do but follow Minga out of the orchard, but before she left the garden she raised her eyes with a swift inquiring look into the strong blue ones fixed upon her. What she saw there puzzled and dismayed her. A sudden thought set her heart to beating quickly. "Minga," called Sard suddenly, "Minga, wait for me!" Startled like a bird, the girl sped out of the little garden patch. The two hurried toward the house.
Minga put her hand on Sard's shoulder; a look of frank curiosity and inquiry was on her face. "Where did he get that name Colter?" she demanded.
"It was printed in the old wreck of a cap he wore, but he says it is not his name. But he can't remember his name. Well," asked Sard breathlessly, "well, what do you think?"
Minga faced the older girl solemnly. "Look here," she demanded, "what is that creature—who is it—where did you pick it up?"
"Then you felt it, too," Sard demanded triumphantly. "You know he isn't a common person?"
Minga shook her head solemnly. "I don't know what I know," obstinately, "only it can't be the President of the United States, you know, and it isn't any kind of foreigner and yet—yet he seems to feel as if he were some punkins."
"Then you do see it, too?" Sard was exultant. She grasped the arm of the other girl. "Come on up to my room in the tower and we can talk. Don't let Aunt Reely join us."
"Are you girls making any arrangements for the Saturday night club dance?" demanded that lady. Miss Aurelia was fresh in a white dress with cuffs and collar of intricate embroidery. She wore a chain of colorless coral beads. "This dance will not be like the others 'in sweaters and tennis shoes,'" she warned them. "Mrs. Spoyd has been working very hard to get the young people to appear well at the dances. Now your frock, Sard, needs certain things done to it. Mrs. Spoyd thinks you dress too old."
"Oh, gracious!" Sard threw out her hands in impatience. "My yellow frock is good for a year yet. Don't bother, dear," she begged.
"Now, Sard, I'm not sure," Miss Aurelia demurred. "Last time you wore it I thought—they wear them so short now. Shouldn't you take it up a little? But I don't know. Of course, Mrs. Spoyd thinks—I—she—you——" Minga interfered.
"Come in and look at my pretty little robe," she invited sweetly. "Such a jazzy little affair! Straight off the Avenue."
Minga held up a small bunch of color. "Perky, isn't it?" she wanted to know. "A little daring, as the lady said, but of course, if that's what people are wearing——" Minga made a face of sweet inquiry.
The twin-petaled blue tunic with its girdle and shoulder straps of flame color had two jeweled butterflies, one planted below Minga's little thin chest, the other at the base of her supple back. This confection could have been blown away with a sigh. Miss Aurelia heaved that sigh.
"Of course, nowadays that cut under the arm is what they all wear—very popular. Dearest," asked Miss Aurelia plaintively, "if it should grow cold and you wanted an—er—under body or guimpe of any kind, I'm sure I could lend you one. And you wear so little underneath——"
Minga, holding the dress close up to her, hung her dark curly head on one side. "Rather nippy," she remarked with satisfaction. "You think it shows too much of me? Oh, no," comforted Minga, "there's really quite a good deal of me that doesn't show, but don't worry, Miss Aurelia, nobody will be thinking about that. People aren't as curious about how we're made as they used to be. We all know that we've got arms and legs and chests and shoulders and ribs and things. It isn't interesting any more!"
Saying this Minga unwittingly put her finger on what is half truth, that is, that it is the Puritanical people of the world who emphasize the harm that is done by vulgar thinking and dressing. The prudish people think more about vulgarity than the vulgar themselves. The way to kill such things is to ignore. The fashion, when it has become a fashion, ceases to be notable, or even challenging. But its dubious life is prolonged by those who seek to curb it.
Miss Aurelia, with many murmured doubts and misgivings, now took Sard's frock out of its tissuepaper and pasteboard box. With it went a violet sash and violet slippers that Minga scrutinized rather disparagingly. "She ought to have scarlet slippers and scarlet stockings with that yellow."
"It wouldn't be good taste," said Sard shortly.
"But it would be noticed," replied her friend archly, "and you have nice legs, Sard. Now, Aunt Reely," Minga held up an accusing finger, "don't pretend you don't know that. You do know that Sard has nice legs; so does Judgie, so does Dunstan. Why shouldn't the world know?"
So the conference on evening dress broke up amid Miss Aurelia's doubts and fears and distressed sense of legs. Minga leading, the girls climbed the tower room stairs, half restraining their giggles.
"If I come down to dinner in that frock Judgie will send me to bed without my supper," Minga prophesied; "just the same, he will take several long looks to be sure he is right." The restless tongue wagged on until Minga became conscious that her comrade was not listening to her. She glanced at Sard staring out of the window and remembered what they had climbed up here for. "Now tell me about this queer critter you've got out there. You call him Colter. I'd have been willing to bet my engagement ring that was not his real name. His real name," said Minga, "is Lancelot Humbug."
Sard, twisting the shade cord, slowly shook her head. "How do we know?" she murmured. "He isn't anything we think he is. I mean what he's supposed to be, but," she looked quickly at Minga, then away,"I've come to the point where I'd rather not know anything. There might be something awful." The girl shivered slightly. "How do I know?" she repeated.
Sard turned eagerly to her friend. "Minga, do you get things, have them come to you, without thinking? Do you ever just know things through and through without being told, you know, sort of sense a thing?"
Minga, going to the dressing-table and taking the ivory-backed nail buffer, searched about for some polishing powder. "When you start off like that," the girl remarked, "I always find some light hand labor. Go on, Sard, honey; I can get my nails beautifully done while you give me the last Sard-slush."
"Oh, you fuss so over your nails," said the other girl irritably. "I think it's bad taste, somehow. I can't bear these women who take every moment they get to compare their hair and teeth and nails and fingers; there's something monkey-like about it, sort of like savages. I suppose," Sard laughed a little ironically, "if I had nothing else to do but sit on the sand and smear oil on my skin I'd be interested in such things, too."
"Whew!" whistled Minga imperturbably, "you are all rubbed up! You foam, you fairly sizzle!" She went over to her friend and archly explained.
"It's only my sweet womanly concern for my lover—dearrrest—Tawny has telephoned; only engaged six dances. I think he's slipping away from me, and I don't want to lose him, not when they're doing thatqueer 'bubble and squeak step' and he's the only man who can do it. Tawny," explained Minga, "must see his ring glittering upon the most feminine little hand in the world. You see I have a feeling that he wants to pass me up for Cynthia or Gertrude; these two have been corresponding with him, and he sent them candy last week—Blaaaaaa!"
Minga, with a gesture of disgust, dropped her eyes. She waved her buffer in the air, fastening her eyes on her friend. "Does he think he can fool me that way? Ahem, I'm talking." The other girl's head was turned away, the eyes staring in troubled fixity at the river. "If anyone were to fall out of the hearse and ask me," said Minga with tender solemnity, "I should reply that I did not think you were interested."
It was the quality of essential good nature in this girl that made her loved. All Minga's idle words, her flippancies and inconsistencies seemed to conceal some sound core of being that made her not willing to wound. Now, she went over and brought her hand down on Sard's back.
"Minga!" The other started irritably and edged away.
"Oh, pshaw!" said the little person with bobbed hair. "Sard, don't be silly; you act like Mannikin Maude, the Temperamental Tempest. Now in good, plain American what's the matter?" Minga, turning her friend's head to meet her eyes, pronounced her verdict.
"Say, look here, you've—you've been no good since that night on the mountain with Watts Shipman; hesnubbed you, I suppose, the way he snubbed us all. Well, what do you care? He's only a silly old bachelor. Pooh!" Minga addressed her finger nails, "I could eat into his heart like a maggot if I only wanted to——" She slapped Sard on the back again. "Ooooo—but you're gloomy. Brace up, cheer up, swell up, the worst is yet to come!"
No one could withstand this absurd rallying. The girl at the window smiled in spite of herself, but she shook her head.
"Minga," in a low voice, "that man out there is somebody!"
"Bllllaaaaa." Minga rolled in despairing disapprobation on the couch. "I know it, but it's not my affair. I knew that was what was going on in your head. Lawrence Multimillionaire, the missing heir of Deepcroft Manor—Oh!" Minga wailed, "to think of you, Sard, the steady, the highbrow, the blessed Damosel, to come to a thing like this! Honest, I do think the movies turn our heads when—when we least expect it. I thought I noticed that the garbage man wore a fraternity pin," she jeered, "and surely the iceman quoted from the 'Rubaiyat' yesterday morning."
But Sard would not catch at this mood, she only put aside the teasing hand that tweaked her hair and fussed over her belt buckle. At last, she said half under her breath, "If it is amnesia, if he himself doesn't know who he is, where he belongs, think of the horror of that!"
There was a whir and chug of an arrested car onthe drive under the window. Dunstan with klaxon and voice hailed them. "Oh, you Minga, put out your head. Say, goils, we've got a notion. The Gertrude bunch is going to pull off that canoe trip up the Hackensack River this afternoon—supper and a few ghost stories, toasted marshmallows, wit, laughter, and moonlight. Want to go?"
Minga looked out, eyeing him critically. "Dunce, why do you wear a sweater that color? It's awful for you; you should wear nothing but soft tans and yellow to go with your doggy eyes."
"Humph!" said Dunstan, "that'll do for my doggy eyes." He got out and went around to the back of the car and took out a kit of tools. "Now I don't want to be bothered with the drool of an engaged flapper," he declared; "but I say, do you want to go on this joy jump? I mean it."
The girls leaning out consulted each other with their eyes. "We were going to wash our hair," demurred Sard, "and then we promised to make fudge for Aunt Reely, and then," said Minga solemnly, "I promised to show Aunt Reely a knitting stitch."
"Ha," the youth below looked up and grinned—"in other words you don't want to go, or in still other words you don't like the Gertrude and Cin combination. Oh, Sard, you're so noble and literary," the brother said in mock admiration, "you express things so well. You—she—I—they—it—he—she," Dunstan dropped the rôle of Aunt Aurelia and concluded shortly, "Well, why should you go? Whowants a couple of old hens washing their hair? The road-hog Gert and Cin'll do all right."
Minga thought the thing over. "There's nothing to see on the Hackensack," she misdoubted, "just old water and moss and trees and things."
"Oh, ain't there?" said Dunstan, airily. "Well, I don't tell everything to ladies who don't care for my society or my friends. I don't speak of pink pearls, and here I raced all the way home and punctured a tire to get you two old crones because I thought you'd like to go."
The two crones, slightly crestfallen, once more surveyed each other.
"Which men did you pick out for us?" at last inquired Sard.
Dunstan pushed back his cap; his brow was hot with his philanthropic offer to promote a picnic.
"Well," he divulged, a little unwillingly, "of course, Gertrude wanted me, and Cinny had a chap coming out on an afternoon train, dunno who, and then we thought, well, the girls thought, that Sperry, the owl-eyed lawyer, would do for you, Sard, and Minga, well, Balky Popham sort of butted in and chose Minga."
"That settles it, you see." Minga grinned politely with all her little teeth. "We're going to wash our hair!"
"Oh, my faith!" groaned the youth below. "Say, you two are a couple of Convent Coolies." Looking up wrath fully he tried to face them down with this epithet, but to face a person down while looking upward is difficult: at last he gave it up. "Right-o!" he said bitterly. "Right-o! Then I get the fair Cynthia with her little bag of dope and Gertrude with her gloomy gaze, and we side-track the others and pass on to our own private funeral."
There was something in the young fellow's tone as he said this that roused both girls; half protesting, half laughing, they leaned out. "No, wait, Dunce!" they pleaded, "let's talk it over. Perhaps—wait—Dunce—Dunce——" but there was the angry whir of the car and Dunce was gone.
Minga's face was scarlet, her eyes gleamed. She turned to Sard. "Well, now you see what we've done. We were idiots. He was asking us because—because——Sard, you know what those girls are!"
Sard, brows knitted, was self-conscious. "I ought to have realized," she said slowly, "but perhaps it's just——Oh, dear, Minga, what were we thinking of? Dunstan has done his best to sort of good-naturedly keep away from Cinny and Gertrude! My, she's horrible for a nice boy."
"And they'll work up a stag line with him for to-morrow night," said Minga. "Oh, oh, oh!" she stamped her foot. "They'll have the pick of the dances and all the extras. You know how they'll work it, Sard. Why didn't you think quickly?"
The other girl ran her hand lovingly over the curly head. "Such a little pepper-pot; why didn't you think? I thought you didn't want to go, Minga; you're so funny, nobody will ever know what you want."
"Well, I will," asserted Minga vehemently, "thatis, I'll know what I want when I want it and now I want everlastingly to keep that Gertrude thing from our nice boys and from Tawny, don't you see, Sard?" Minga's eyes widened virtuously. "She's setting traps for my fiancé."
Sard threw back her head. "Oh," she pealed, "oh, you are too dreadful. I give you up. Come on down to lunch."
The luncheon gong sounded its three soft ascending vibrations. The girls, consulting, went down arm-in-arm. At the table they talked of the large chrysanthemums they had seen at a flower show and of a new way to serve butter, and Aunt Aurelia thought, "I am so glad to see them getting interested in ladylike things. It is fortunate they did not go on with college; they have just enough ideas, I think."