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Title: The Fighting Littles
Author: Tarkington, Booth [Newton Booth] (1869-1946)
Date of first publication: 1941
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1941
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 3 April 2019
Date last updated: 3 April 2019
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1603

This ebook was produced by
Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.






THE FIGHTING LITTLES

by Booth Tarkington




    To All the Nieces
    Florence, Margaret, Josephine, Patty, Susanah, Mig,
    and the Divine Flora
    From
    A Completely Admiring Uncle




CHAPTER I


June morning sunshine brightening hotly on the lowered window shades of
Mrs. Little's bedroom woke her from a dream that she was still beautiful
Wilma Filmer, unmarried and being chased by a Russian choir. For some
moments after her waking, which was at first only partial, she remained
in fear of the choir; then, becoming slightly more intelligent,
comprehended that she was afraid of something else but couldn't remember
what it was. She didn't wish to remember, either. Apprehension lay upon
her shapelessly; but she preferred not to investigate it and tried to
get back to sleep again, no matter came what dreams. Recollections
wouldn't let her, began to form themselves, and she was aware that she
feared something old and something new. Something that had been
happening for a long while frightened her and so did something
recent--so recent that it had taken place during the past night. "Oh,
my!" she said aloud, remembering everything, and decided not to get up
until her husband had gone downtown to business, if he'd let her.

The something old that frightened her--the something that had been
happening for a long time--was the change in what she thought of as her
husband's disposition. During their engagement and for a long time after
they were married nobody could have been more amiably tractable. He
sought no pleasure without her, except to attend a Legion meeting now
and then, or a banquet of his college fraternity alumni; and, generous,
he was delighted when she confessed to him that she'd spent a little
more on a dress, a pair of slippers or a hat than she thought she ought.
Sturdy and energetic in body and mind, he loved his country, his wife,
baseball and pounding hard at his business. They were happy in the
six-room house where they lived those first years, half way to downtown
in their growing city; it wasn't until after the birth of the baby that
he showed a first symptom of what later got to be the matter with him.

"Put her back in the crib instantly!" he said crisply to his wife, one
day. "I don't intend to have my child picked up and held in that
posture; it's not hygiene."

He'd read all the books, and his wife hadn't read any; books made her
sleepy. So she gave way and put the baby back in the crib. Several times
Ripley Little was like this; but evoked from the young wife more
amusement than alarm. In fact, she was pleased by the scientific raising
he insisted upon for their little girl.

Affection made him perhaps an overdutiful father, and he was only a
little less so when the second child, a boy, was born three years and a
few months later; but in general the young husband's amiability, often
fondly indulgent, continued, and so did the cheerfulness of the small
household. There couldn't easily have been a jollier family when the
children were little. Christmases and birthdays were merry festivals,
and in the summertime Ripley Little had a hundred devices for making
gay--afternoons at the ball park, picnics in a dozen sylvan spots known
to him since boyhood, evening dashes in the car for sundaes downtown at
the fashionable confectioner's, spending debauches at Schcke's
voluptuous toy store, movies, the circus--there was no end to the
surprises he had for the children.

He loved to play with them and their toys, and, when they grew old
enough for school, he went over their lessons with them, chucklingly
solved their problems in arithmetic, freshened his memory to talk
history with them, and obviously asked no better of life than to
continue these pleasures. He didn't even play golf, declaring that he
had too much fun at home with "the little Little family." In those days
he loved to speak of his wife, his children and himself as "the little
Little family", and he often repeated wistfully his great wish--that his
children would never grow older.

He was a born businessman, and, profoundly inspired by the thought that
he worked for his children's future, he strove mightily and
successfully, was happy in his daily tasks, prospered rapidly. Goody,
the little girl, was six years old and Filmer, the boy, just under three
in 1929 when their father bought the fine new house, with the
shrubberied big yard for them to play in, far out in a semi-suburban
affluent neighborhood. The stock market collapse of that year didn't
hurt Ripley Little much--he'd anticipated it--and he stood up to the
declines of '31 and '32 manfully; it wasn't till after the banks had
been closed in '33 that his confident cheerfulness was really impaired.
His wife, never much aware of economics or of public affairs, perceived
that he began to have a habit of looking uneasy and to be sometimes
irritable in his speech. He was still jolly with the children but
inclined to be stricter with them.

This strictness, or at least the attempt to enforce it, increased. He'd
been brought up--or now believed he had--to respect his elders, to
cultivate quiet and rather formal manners, to reverence religious
observances, to possess a feeling of responsibility and to be generally
sensible. As his children grew old enough to be supposed to understand
these things, he naturally expected their deportment to show that they
did, and, more and more worried about his country and his business, he
became more fretful when it didn't.

Especially was he sharp sometimes with his daughter; for the young
Goody, resembling her mother, who was still a noticeably pretty woman,
seemed to be growing up lightheaded, particularly when she came to be
fourteen and fifteen and sixteen. As these ages coincided with
unpleasant perturbations brought upon Ripley Little by both private and
public affairs, he was the more frequently temperish, while Goody,
proportionately high-spirited as she grew prettier and prettier, replied
in kind. To Mrs. Little her own position daily seemed to be the
unfortunate one of an umpire present upon a field of continuous
contest--an umpire often appealed to but without the power to enforce
her decisions or, indeed, many opportunities to announce them.

She was a peace-loving woman; but not an able one. She'd never known how
to cope with what she called "the servant problem", and her vigorous
husband had done most of the housekeeping before Cousin Olita came to
live with the family. Cousin Olita, born Filmer (not Little) was
peace-loving too; but she had a gift, her only one, for making household
service smooth. In her youth Cousin Olita had been thought quite a
showpiece in a large curvy way, though nobody young would have believed
this of her now, and she was still as pleasant looking as she was
overbuxom, frizzly-blonded and good-natured. Flat broke at forty-five,
she'd flopped upon the Littles, who kept her because somebody had to;
but her sunniness and her talent with servants and for marketing were at
least partly worth the added expense. Mrs. Little thought that they all
might be having a pretty nice time together--she and Ripley and Goody
and young Filmer and Cousin Olita--if her husband could ever just forget
the New Deal and stop fighting with Goody, anyhow now and then.

He didn't seem able to do either, though he had a wild week of
excitement and triumph in the early summer of 1940 when the Republicans
nominated Mr. Wendell L. Willkie for President. Ripley Little went so
passionately into the campaign that his troubles with the
seventeen-year-old Goody were minor until after the election in
November, which prostrated him. Recovering partially, he renewed his
struggle to form his daughter upon old precepts and was so vehement in
the matter that Mrs. Little feared there'd never be peace in the house
again.

She reproached herself for her total failure as a reconciliator. Not
perceiving that she was merely a buffer in a war between two generations
and two nervous nervous systems, she was sure that there was _some_ road
to harmony if she could only find it. Advised by a friend, she privately
consulted a psychiatrist who, himself confused by her account of her
troubles, got her all mixed up and frightened. She began by trying hard
to tell him about her husband's peculiar system of profanity, how what
he said sounded terribly like swearing yet really wasn't.

The truth of the matter, simpler than she realized, was only that Ripley
Little sometimes yielded to the ancient urge of many good men to be
profane yet not irreverent and to blaspheme without sin. Archaic forms,
such as Od's wounds, Od's fish, 'Sblood, Gadzooks, would have been
ridiculous in the modern mouth, and the later Jiminy criminy, Jiminy
crickets, Gee, Gosh, Golly, Jeepers creepers, or the New England My
Godfrey, My Odfrey, and By Orry, these and their like would have been
pale upon the tongue of a man so forcible. Ripley Little's style in all
of his acts was the natural, so his style in swearing sprang naturally
to his lips, although, as his wife said, it sounded dismayingly like the
real thing. Mrs. Little's powers of narration, however, were feeble and
she didn't make herself entirely clear.

"You see, he says something like jobjam, for instance," she told the
psychiatrist. "Sometimes I think he's saying what it sounds like, or
even worse; but I don't think it ever is, really, if you see what I
mean. He was brought up religiously and likes to set an example whenever
he can. When we were first married I never really did hear him say
anything like that--not until these last few years. I'd think I'd hear
him muttering these things to himself, and then sometimes it would come
out right loudly--jobjam and those other things, you see--especially
when he's talking about our young Goody's friends, or her beginning
lipstick or anything, or wearing shorts, you see. For quite a while I
used to think it was profane; but if I listened closely, then I didn't
think so because I could hear it was just jobjam or job jam the
helm----"

"What?" The doctor leaned forward attentively. "What did you say?"

"Why, job jam the helm," Mrs. Little replied, reddening. "Sometimes I'd
get to thinking he said these things so much that I ought to speak to
him about it and tell him it was bad for him. You see?"

"Yes, perfectly," the psychiatrist replied. "After you first thought you
heard your husband using these strange expressions, you thought you
heard them oftener. I see. Now let's get back a little. Perhaps you
might find it interesting to give me just a little talk about your
childhood, and we'll see if you can remember if anything ever shocked
and upset you when you were very young."

Bewildered, Mrs. Little tried to comply; then interrupted herself to
explain that her husband really did say "job jam" for worse. It wasn't
an illusion of hers, she said repeatedly, and what she wanted advice
about was how to become the kind of woman that could keep peace in her
family; but the psychiatrist, smiling kindly, kept trying to lead her
back to her memories of her childhood. She felt that they weren't
getting much of anywhere together, and when she left she was so worried
about her own mental condition that she decided not to come again lest
she be more so.

Going to lengths, she read several magazine articles on helpful wifely
and motherly procedures. She even confusedly plodded through part of a
book, _The Family_, and, hearing of an instructive play called _Life
with Father_ in which a wife and mother got away with a good deal in
spite of a dominating husband and father, she went to see it; but she
came forth hopeless, knowing herself not up to the lady therein
depicted.

In regard to her present family life, Mrs. Little found only one
comfort: she gave up the idea that she could ever hope to stand between
her husband and their daughter, though she'd always keep trying; but at
least she hadn't often to try to stand between Ripley Little and their
young son, Filmer. That promising boy had reached the age of fourteen,
almost fifteen now, without getting Ripley Little seriously upset more
than seven or eight times.

The mother realized that maybe this was because Filmer, in his home
life, was carefully secretive about himself--except in perhaps too
frequent references to the praise he had from his teachers--but at any
rate it was a comfort, for the time being. She knew of course that
Filmer's adolescence might break out on him and get him into real
trouble with his father, the way Goody's had; but, so far, this wasn't
happening, thank heaven, and her husband sometimes even praised Filmer's
sensible conduct as a contrast to Goody's irresponsibility. Filmer was
growing up to be a good quiet little man, the father had gone so far as
to say; Filmer knew how to take care of himself and how to treat older
people with consideration; Filmer was too bright to look upon life as
uproar and motion merely.

"Uproar!" Mrs. Little thought of the uproar that had roused her in the
early dark hours of that morning, and again she gasped "Oh, my!" to her
pillow.

The sunshine grew stronger upon her window shades; she heard Cousin
Olita tap upon Filmer's door to rouse him for the day; then firm
footsteps, a man's, sounded along the corridor, descended the stairway
and were heard from the hall below. Straight beneath her, in the
dining-room, a moment later, there was a thump as of a chair roughly
used. Ripley Little was sitting down to his breakfast.




CHAPTER II


In the butler's pantry Gentry Poindexter, colored, tall, Zulu-ish and
all in white, spoke with relish to his wife, the Littles' housemaid.
"Boss sutny madded up this day, Almatina. You go' hear him cuss like you
ain't never hear him yet."

Almatina, preparing a breakfast tray to be taken upstairs, shook her
head. "You the dumb-earedest man I ever listen to, Gentry. How many
times do I got to tell you it's like Miss Olita says and Mr. Little's
cussin' ain't cussin' at all. It sound like it; but it ain't."

"So?" the colored man said. "You and Miss Olita can tell me it ain't
cussin' every day for seven months and Christmas; but if you right, then
I ain't got no more ability to listen good than a ant's got money to buy
him wrastlin' pants." He giggled whisperingly, placed a silver
coffee-pot upon a Sheffield tray and stepped toward the door. "Settin'
at table ri' now, holdin' up the newspaper 'tween him and Miss Olita so
he ain't got to look at her. Ain't makin' a sound; but he go' be
buzz-boomin' soon! Somebody go' start him; but it ain't go' be me. Ain't
go' be Gentry tell him whut happen las' night. No, ma'am!"

Thereupon Gentry Poindexter opened the pantry door with his knee, passed
into the dining-room and refilled the coffee-cup at the elbow of the
stocky-bodied, middle-aged man who sat at the head of the mahogany
Georgian table and irascibly stared at a morning newspaper. Cousin Olita
bore him company, so to speak; but hushedly. She looked up from her
place half way down the table, and spoke in a low voice.

"You might just leave the coffee-pot, Gentry. Mr. Little may like----"

"What?" Little looked over the top of his paper challengingly. "What may
I like?"

"Nothing," Cousin Olita said hurriedly. "I only told Gentry to leave the
coffee-pot because you may like----"

"Like?" Ripley Little said again. "I'd like to know what's left for me
to like. I'm jammed if I see what's left for anybody to like when every
time a man looks at a newspaper for nine years he either sees where
Hitler's done something worse than he did yesterday or else reads
something that means he'll have to hire three lawyers to tell him how to
write down everything he does in what little business he's got left with
what little money he's got left in a way that won't get him into the
penitentiary." He thrust the paper from him. "It seems slightly peculiar
to me that you claim to have slept through all the rumpus in this house
after midnight last night. I find that hard to credit, Olita, hard to
credit." He looked sternly at the colored man. "Gentry, that noise
certainly penetrated to your quarters. What was it?"

A film of blankness overspread Gentry Poindexter's face; his eyes became
opaque and his whole person expressed nonreceptivity. "Me," he said, "I
ain't turn off layin' on my face from ten las' night to six o'clock
after daylight."

"What? You mean to tell me you slept through all _that?_"

"When I sleep," Gentry said, "I sleep. No, suh. Whutever 'twas, Gentry
ain't hear it."

Little frowned at him. "You didn't hear the siren?"

"Hear whut, Mr. Little?"

"I'm asking you. You didn't hear a police car sirening all over this
neighborhood last night?"

"Police? I got nothin' to do with them people."

"It sounded all the way from down the street, getting louder and
louder," Ripley Little said. "It didn't stop its noise until it got in
front of this house; and right after that a car turned into our driveway
and job jam if it didn't sound to me mighty like as if it was the car
that had been doing the sirening! Then somebody drove a herd of cattle
into the house, turned the phonograph on, and the cows tried to dance.
You heard nothing?"

"I ain't hear no cow dance, no, suh, Mr. Little. All night long I
sleepin' sweet on my face and ain't hear----"

He was interrupted by the youth, Filmer, who came into the dining-room
at that moment and took his place at the table. "Then you must 'a' been
dead, not asleep," Filmer said. "I never heard such a disgraceful noise
in this house in all my whole days. Bring me my cereal, Gentry."

"Oh, then somebody _did_ hear something, after all!" Ripley Little
looked upon his son with a frowning slight approval, as Gentry departed.
"I'm glad to be corroborated. Gentry and your Cousin Olita talk as if
I'm suffering from auditory delusions, Filmer. They'd both take their
oath that the neighborhood and this house were so peaceful throughout
the night that they slept like lambs and heard no disturbance whatever.
Can you tell me what caused it?"

"Easy," Filmer replied. "I could win quiz contests all day on questions
like that. It was Goody and Ham Ellers--I know I heard _his_ voice--and
the rest of her screwy crowd. I didn't wake up till they were dancing
right under my room; but they were creating such an outrage I wondered,
Father, you didn't go down and stop 'em."

"So did I!" his father said testily. "So do I now! A thousand times I
wonder why I permit this family to be subjected to such outbreaks in the
dead of the night." He looked crossly at Gentry Poindexter, who was
placing Filmer's cereal upon the table. "You can get ready to drive me
downtown, Gentry."

"Downtown?" Gentry asked in a surprised voice. "Downtown, Mr. Little?"

Little, rising from his chair, stared at him. "What's the matter with
you? Where else do I go except downtown, at this hour? Isn't it your
custom to drive me downtown in my car after breakfast?"

"Yes, suh; but I was jes' thinkin' about that."

"You were? Just thinking about it, were you?"

"Yes, suh; I was thinkin' kind o' like this." The colored man, avoiding
his employer's eye, discovered a crumb upon the polished surface of the
table, removed it conscientiously with a napkin. "Mr. Little, ain't I
always says we intitle to be a three-car family, not one them cheap
twos? Look at this fine big house, all that nice grass and flower bushes
and them trees we got, nice driveway out to the street. By rights we a
three-car family, Mr. Little. We----"

"What's the matter with you?" Little inquired again. "Are you going to
bring my car around or aren't you?"

"Yes, suh. I was jes' thinkin'----" Gentry carefully removed another
crumb from the table, seeming intent upon this duty. "We pure and
honestly need more'n jes' one car, Mr. Little, for me to drive you
downtown in and go after you in, and only one other for all the
scramblin' round Miz Little and Miss Goody does in it, 'specially Miss
Goody. No, suh, yes'd'y noon Miss Goody had to leave that other car in
Crappio's garage and it won't be out today; Crappio can't say when. That
other car been complainin' since 'way las' winter. Them old models hard
to get in good condition once they break down. So we ain't go' be able
use that one now, Mr. Little."

"I'm not talking about the other car," Little said. "I'm talking about
my own car. Are you trying to tell me you've let it get out of
commission? It was absolutely all right when you brought me home in it
at five o'clock yesterday afternoon. Have you had it out since?"

"Me? No, no, suh! But yes'd'y evenin' drivin' you home I kind o' notice
we ain't rollin' so good. Seem like sump'n fixin' to bust; she ain't say
whut. Indurin' the night it look like she done it. Yes, suh, sump'n
bust; this morning she won't roll."

"What! Do you mean to tell me that just standing in my garage that
car----"

"She won't roll, Mr. Little. She out. Madison Boulevard bus line got
nice bus, though; yes, suh. Scuse me, suh."

Gentry, carrying two crumbs in a napkin upon his tray, kneed himself
back into the butler's pantry, and Ripley Little, still standing, looked
intolerantly at Cousin Olita, whose gaze was upon her coffee-cup.
"Olita, do you think you can see to it that Crappio gets a repair man
here in time to have my car put in condition to be sent downtown for me
at lunchtime?" he asked.

"I--I'll try, Cousin Ripley." Cousin Olita drank from her cup, seeming
interested in its upper rim as she did so. "I'll do my best; but you
know how repair men always are, Cousin Ripley. Of course the Madison
Boulevard bus is very pleasant indeed; I like that bus, myself, Cousin
Ripley. One always sees people one knows in the Madison Boulevard
busses, really nice people, too; so that a bus ride on a Madison
Boulevard bus often means really quite a nice sociable time and----"

"That's why I hate it," Little said as he opened the dining-room door
and walked out into the wide front hallway.

Sounds from the other side of the white-paneled front door, thirty feet
before him, brought him to a halt; and his forehead immediately became
corrugated with displeasing suspicions. Footsteps clumped on the floor
of the portico outside that door; young voices were heard confusedly and
there was a fumbling at the polished big brass latch. Then the door
opened, revealing four interestingly damaged male persons, in age
between seventeen and twenty-one. Two of them had their right arms in
slings; the third, with the aid of a crutch, humored an injured foot;
and the fourth had a bandaged chin. At sight of the master of the house
all of them paused; then the one with the bandaged chin advanced a few
steps, looking serious.

"Listen, Mr. Little, please," this one said. "Where's Plunks?"

"Listen yourself, but not please," Little returned. "I don't wish to
intrude upon your private business or manners, Hamilton Ellers; but
don't you usually ring the bell before entering people's houses?"

"We thought you'd be gone, sir," young Mr. Ellers explained
unthinkingly.

"Ah! Too bad!" Ripley Little said. "Too bad; but I'm not. What's the
matter with all of you? Been in a night spot riot? Never mind, don't
inform me; I'm not interested. It's a bit early to receive callers.
Kindly permit me to suggest that you return to your homes--or to your
surgeons."

"Well----" Hamilton Ellers, abashed but only slightly so, touched his
bandaged chin; then passed his hand over his irregular but not uncomely
other features. "Well, sir, we'd really like to see Plunks if----"

"That's not my daughter's name." Little advanced discouragingly. "I
don't enjoy hearing it applied to her. I realize that my objection means
nothing to you; nevertheless, I still retain title to this property.
Kindly retire--or unkindly if you prefer. I'm indifferent which, just so
you retire. I bid you good-day--permanently if possible. Do I make my
meaning at all clear?"

"Well, sir, if Plunks--I mean Goody----"

"I don't?" Ripley Little continued his advance.

"Ye--es, sir." Hamilton Ellers, at least law-abiding, clumped out to
rejoin his friends in the portico, closing the door behind him; and
Ripley Little, breathing noisily, passed into the living-room and from a
window saw the four moving crippledly toward the front gate and the
street. They spoke busily together as they went, but seemed downcast.

"'Plunks'," Ripley Little said, staring through the glass. "That's nice.
'Plunks'!"

"I don't blame you, Father," his fourteen-year-old son said
sympathetically from the open double doorway behind him. "I don't blame
you for getting mad and talking to yourself."

"Talking to myself?" Little turned. "I wasn't doing anything of the
kind."

"Weren't you, Father?" Filmer said. "Well, anyhow, I think you did the
right thing. Goody heard you, too. She was leaning over the banisters
and she'd have come down and interfered except I think she thought it'd
just make it more embarrassing. She's still up there, listening, and it
ought to teach her something useful because she certainly heard----"

"I certainly did!" a sweet voice called vindictively from the stairway,
and the prettiest girl for miles around--dark-eyed, brown-haired and
stirringly graceful--sped down the steps and came rushing into the room.




CHAPTER III


Her violently yellow, scarlet, green and black modernist pajamas were
not unbecoming; but her facial extreme beauty was marred by a swollen
underlip and a discoloration under her right eye; two strips of adhesive
plaster, moreover, were crossed upon her right cheek. "Did I _hear_ it!"
she cried. "_Now_ I know how you speak to my most intimate friends when
I'm not there to protect them! You may be my father; but----"

"That will do! We'll go into this in a moment." Little turned from her
to his son. "Filmer, have you finished your breakfast?"

"No, sir. I was just getting into it when I thought I'd better come out
in the hall and see what----"

"Very well," Little said. "I don't pretend that I'm not glad to have one
intelligent and obedient child left, Filmer; but I think now you'd
better go back into the dining-room and close the door and finish your
breakfast."

"Yes, sir." Filmer, reluctant but flattered, proved that he was
obedient, and, after the dining-room door had been heard to close,
Ripley Little addressed his daughter, trying to use a quiet and
reasonable voice. She stood before him defiant, breathing fast.

"Now let's have it," he said. "What's the matter with your face?"

"Nothing's the matter with it! Nothing to speak of. I merely----"

"Merely!" her father echoed. "Merely? You call that merely? I'm
beginning to have strange ideas. Those gilded hoodlums that just tried
to break in here at breakfast-time were practically in ruins, and I'm
beginning to believe that a police car actually _did_ drive up to our
front door last night. I----"

"They're not!" the daughter interrupted hotly. "What right have you to
call my most intimate friends hoodlums?"

"They are!" The father's temper, already wrecked within, began to
operate his voice. "Bandaged gilded young hoodlums, and I'm not going to
have them breaking in here day and night, calling a daughter of mine
'Plunks' and----"

"What's the matter with 'Plunks'?" she asked bitterly. "Is it my fault
you named me 'Gudrida'? Mother told me she didn't have a thing to do
with it; you were bound to christen me 'Gudrida'. I hate being called
'Goody' or 'Drida' and there aren't any lovelier boys in this whole
world than Ham Ellers and Bull Thetford and Ruggo Smart and Hot Toddy.
You----"

"Look at your face!" Ripley Little said, all reasonableness gone. "Just
look at it, I ask you! How'd you get it?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you. If you'll ever stop raving
long enough to let me----"

"All right. I've stopped. So go ahead. If anybody's doing any raving in
this room it certainly isn't I. It's difficult to restrain myself
sometimes; but----"

"I thought you said you'd stopped." Then, as her father only looked at
her over a heaving chest, Goody spoke as rapidly as she possibly could.
"It all amounts to nothing at all except the boys had to come early
today on account of having to see me right away about something very
important."

"'Important'? Of all creatures living on this distracted earth the four
least likely to have anything important in their heads----"

"Go it!" Goody said. "I thought you claimed you'd stopped and wanted to
listen. I'm glad, though, you don't think it's important about your car
because----"

"My car!" Little started. "_My_ car?"

"You weren't using it, nobody was; the other one was in Crappio's and we
didn't have any," Goody explained, with an air of strained patience. It
was as if she strove to reach the mind of a backward child. "Mother and
Cousin Olita both practically the same as said we could because Ruggo's
sister had sneaked his car out on him, poor Ham's got smashed by that
truck last week, and Bull and Hot haven't got any. So we definitely
didn't have any other way to get to the Rosy Showboat. We----"

"It's coming," her father said. "Now I'm beginning to get it. Rosy
Showboat! You _had_ to get to the Rosy Showboat. Of course! The whole
jobjam world would have been upset and Hitler'd have been sitting right
in the White House if you and Ham Ellers and Bull Thetford and Ruggo
Smart and Hot Toddy hadn't got to the Rosy Showboat. So you deliberately
took my car--and later there was a police car----"

"Police car? Ridiculous!" Goody interrupted. "It wasn't anything of the
kind. I suppose you heard the siren and----"

"Heard it? Who in this whole town didn't hear it? It came screeching up
the street and then the phonograph started and a herd of buffaloes----"

"Oh, I knew what a fuss you'd make if it woke you up," Goody said.
"What's the use? Entirely on account of your forever going into a frenzy
over my staying out a few minutes late, I insisted on coming straight
home from the hospital where they took us first, and the boys naturally
came with me in the ambulance--an ambulance isn't a police car, is
it?--and before we went out to the icebox the nice intern that came
along with us may have been a little high and he was the one that turned
on the phonograph, and the dancing didn't last over half a minute
because I knew if it woke you up you'd be like this in the morning
and----"

"Ambulance," Ripley Little said indistinctly. "Hospital first, then
ambulance. What happened to your face and my car?"

"That's what the boys wanted to see me about this morning," Goody said.
"The man in the other car was definitely beside himself. He claimed he
could prove that Ruggo was driving with his head swiveled round to speak
to Ham Ellers and Bull and me on the back seat when it happened."

"When what happened?" Little's voice was more indistinct. "When what
happened?"

"Why, when the man's car _hit_ us," Goody replied, as if to the most
foolish of all his questions. "What else _could_ I mean? So naturally
the boys were anxious to find out the first thing this morning if I'd
found out if you had any collision insurance on your car because
maybe----"

"Job jam!" Ripley Little said. "Jam! Job jam the helm! Jam the----"

"Oh, all right!" Goody seemed at the end of her patience. "All right if
you have to take it that way. Why can't you be sensible? We all did
everything we possibly could. Even while they were fixing us up at the
hospital and we still didn't know whether we were alive or dead, we
telephoned Crappio to send the wrecking-crew for your car. I'm sorry if
you're inconvenienced, Father; but I think for you to speak to just
about my dearest friends in the insulting and outrageous way you used
when they came here as they did this morning just to try to be helpful
and----"

She would have continued; but her father clapped his hands together,
making a sound that assisted his facial expression to stop her.
"Compared to what I was seven or eight years ago," he said, "I'm a poor
man; but I still command funds enough to hire guards if necessary to
prevent any of those four car-smashers from setting foot on my premises
again day or night. Out of the whole of this community for your constant
associates you select the freshest, uselessest, recklessest----"

"I do not!" Goody protested. "They are not, and anyway they select me.
Definitely! They definitely----"

"Will you stop!" Little shouted. "Whenever I attempt to exert the
slightest authority you try to 'definitely' me deaf. Definitely,
definitely, definitely! I'm so sick of that job jammed word I----"

"Why all the noise?" his daughter inquired. "I'm simply trying to tell
you I'm sorry for what happened to your car and discover if you have any
collision insurance; but why try while you're definitely beside
yourself? If you have any further reason for detaining me from my
breakfast, kindly state it. It's getting cold on a tray upstairs and I'd
definitely like to return to it."

"Go up and eat it!" the furious father said. "While you're consuming it,
swallow this down, too: not one of those swing-crazed speed vandals ever
sets a crippled foot on my property again. Definitely!"

"Indeed?" Goody, who had decisively moved toward the door, swung about
haughtily. "What's your objection to them?"

"What's my----"

"Certainly! What's your objection to them?"

"Well, I'm dobdabbed!" Little said. Then, conscious that desperation
availed him nothing, he once more tried to be reasonable. Compelling
himself, he made his voice appealing, as if from man to man. "See here,
Goody, let's just try to look at this thing sensibly. If you've got to
go places the whole jab time as it seems we can't stop you from doing,
why can't you anyhow pick out somebody more intelligent, or at least
safer, to go with? There certainly are _some_ young people in this town
with anyhow a little common sense and good manners and human caution.
Why can't you find at least one young man or boy that has some
steadiness and sense and modesty and industry and----"

"Who?" Goody asked, and, stepping toward him, permitted herself to utter
a slight peal of jeering laughter. "You have somebody in mind, Father?
Whom do you suggest?"

"Why--why, anybody except those," he said. "I wasn't thinking of anyone
in particular. I only mean somebody superior to those----"

"Well, mention one," Goody returned. "You say there's such a lot. Can't
you mention just one? Who?"

"Why--why----" Little goadedly searched through a limited gallery of
ill-remembered young faces and in haste selected one with an earnest
expression and spectacles. "Why, young Norman Peel, for instance."

"Norman Peel? Did you say Norman Peel, Father?"

"Certainly I did. Norman Peel. Why not Norman Peel? He's--he's----"

"He's what?" Goody repeated her injurious laughter. "You don't know any
more about Norman Peel than a whale does about cats. Are your orders
that I'm to be Norman Peel's sole escort from now on?"

"I merely mentioned him," Little responded, struggling with his voice.
"I mentioned Norman Peel as merely one example of the better sort of
young men of this community."

"You agree with Norman, then," Goody said. "Have you ever seen much of
him, Father?"

"I see him from time to time, certainly. He's shown energy enough to go
into business and I've heard his employers speak of him as industrious.
In a way I've had my eye on him for some time and----"

"Oh, you have your eye on him, have you, Father? As a son-in-law?"

"As a young businessman I'd be glad to see in my own employ," Little
said, and, sorely aware that Goody had him far off the subject of her
defacements, his injured car and those responsible for both, he added
sternly, "As a young man I'd be glad to see in my house because he
doesn't come bursting into it held together with splints and calling my
bandaged daughter 'Plunks'! As a young man who doesn't send me from my
home on foot after maltreating my daughter's face, inflicting losses on
insurance companies and----"

"Oh, then, you _have_ got the insurance!" Goody cried. "Thank heaven the
boys won't feel they have to ask their fathers to----"

"That's all that concerns you, is it?" Little said fiercely. "That's all
you----"

"I said I was sorry, didn't I? How many times do I have to----"

"Don't exert yourself; once is enough," Little said. "'Sorry' pays all
the bills, puts my car at the door for me and fixes your face all up
again! Young people nowadays burn your house down, then just say
'Sorry!' and----"

"Sorry!" Goody interrupted. "My breakfast's waiting." She returned
spiritedly to the doorway, stopped and looked over her shoulder. "What
do you know about 'young people nowadays'? How could you know anything
about 'em when you're always in such a state? Maybe it isn't tactful to
mention it; but in my own quiet circle you're rather well known as the
terrible-tempered Mr. Little."

"I?" he cried unwarily. "That's absolute slander. How often does anybody
ever hear me speak in anger? Twice a year at the most. I----"

"Twice is right," Goody said. "Six months each time."

Upon that, she took advantage of his inability to respond promptly, and
departed; but half way up the stairs she paused to call downward,
"Norman Peel? Houp-la!" Then she resumed her swift ascent.




CHAPTER IV


Little, remaining near the open wide doorway of the living-room, heard
her light footsteps reach the upper hall; then, as spaces were open and
the house was quiet, he unfortunately heard something more--his wife's
voice, apprehensively hushed but all too clearly audible.

"_Is he gone, Goody?_"

He felt justified in taking it upon himself to reply, more than loudly
enough, "I am not, thank you!"

"Oh, dear!" Mrs. Little's response was the squeak of a snared bird; for
in truth she was trapped by her own indiscretion. Unable to return to
her bedroom and retain face, she was irresistibly drawn down the
stairway to explain herself if possible. She came into the living-room
pulling more closely about her the garment of blue rayon she wore over
her night dress; but its effect and hers was that of a helpless
fluttering. "I only meant----" she began. "I didn't mean---- I only
asked Goody----"

"If I'd gone," her husband said grimly. "So you already knew what
happened last night. Did you get up and join the party down here when
you heard the dancing?"

"Well, I did get up," Mrs. Little admitted. "I mean, when I heard them
all go out and Goody came up to bed, I went in her room and got her to
tell me about it. Don't you think we ought to be _so_ glad, Ripley, that
she wasn't seriously injured--that none of them were? It really was a
miracle! Really, Ripley, we seem to be a pretty lucky family. Don't you
think we all ought to be----"

"Rejoicing?" he asked. "Me in particular, I suppose you mean? No, I
don't. Since you ask me: no, I don't. Especially after the interview
I've just had with my daughter, I don't. In regard to that interview and
the general state of this world and this country, I don't find myself in
a rejoicing condition. Do you?"

"Oh, dear!" Mrs. Little sat down flaccidly.

"Up to the time I passed my fortieth year," her husband said, "I lived a
pleasant, quiet life. Up to then I didn't even know I belonged to a
'Class'; I thought I was just a citizen. But somebody that'd read books
by somebody that'd read foreign books began calling 'most everybody the
'Great American Middle Class' because there seems to have been something
like that in Europe; and then, pretty soon, we all got put into new
Classes to fight each other. Goody's in the Youth Class, the Female
Youth Class that has to fight the Father Class. Away from home I'm not
in the Father Class, I'm in the one that got picked on and exploited
from the start by all the other Classes, and had to pay for all of 'em,
jobjam 'em! Up to when I passed my fortieth year----"

"Now, Ripley, please!" Mrs. Little tried to interrupt him. "Don't let's
go over all that again and get all worked up and----"

"It used to be a nice world," he said, "up to when I found out I
belonged to the Underprivileged Class, the greedy few millions of
businessmen that ought to go broke so as to make everything even at
zero. Then when we all _are_ broke, and the country, too, along comes
this nice agreeable gentleman, Hitler, with the dear little Japs to back
him up and scare the shirt off of everybody in the world that just wants
to be let alone to 'tend to his own business--and that's the very time
my own daughter picks to do her jammedest. I tell you from the heart
that if it weren't for Filmer's being kind of a comfort to me sometimes,
I'd be ready to swear we made the mistake of our lives ever having any
children at all. I----"

"Now, Ripley, please don't----"

"Please don't what, Mrs. Little?" Mrs. Little quivered; whenever he
called her "Mrs. Little" she knew that things were bad. "Please don't
_what_?" he repeated. "Talking to Goody I merely expressed a slight
natural human indignation because of the destruction of her face and my
car by her disbrained associates and suggested that just possibly a city
of this size might afford something superior in the way of
companionship; and I was openly jeered at when I mentioned, for
instance, young Norman Peel. She----"

"Norman Peel, Ripley?" Mrs. Little said timidly. "I don't really know
him at all well, dear; but I--I don't think he's exactly
Goody's--Goody's type, is he?"

"Wouldn't that be to his credit?" the embittered father asked, and
replied to himself, "If what she's already picked shows her type, it
certainly would. Just compare Norman Peel with her Ham Ellerses and Hot
Toddys and Bull Thetfords and the rest of 'em, for instance. There
_isn't_ any comparison!"

"Isn't there, Ripley?"

"Not a dobdab nickel's worth!" Little's irritation was increased by what
seemed criticism on the part of both Goody and her mother--criticism of
his ability to discern superior worth. In his argument with Goody he'd
mentioned Norman Peel almost at random, not being able at a moment's
notice to think of any finer young man; now he found himself, he knew
not how, in the position of a champion. Automatically he became crossly
enthusiastic in defending his choice. "Just like you and Goody!" he
said. "I wouldn't put it past you both to be against Norman Peel because
his spectacles kept him out of the draft. I wouldn't put it past you to
be against him because----"

"But I'm not," she protested. "I'm not against----"

"You are," he said. "I can see it. In my opinion, for a boy only a year
out of college, and a beginner, Norman Peel's just about the brightest
young businessman downtown. He was in my office yesterday on an errand;
he was only there for as much as ten or fifteen minutes but I could tell
he knew exactly what he was about. Besides that, he's got a bright
earnest face, he dresses quietly--none of these big checks, no-necktied,
slack-panted, wrinkle-socked, loud----"

"Ripley, please don't get so excited. I don't doubt Norman Peel's a good
young man; but maybe it might have been a mistake to try to talk him up
to Goody just when she felt so hurt about Ham Ellers and the others. She
can't help their all being in love with her, you see, and I'm afraid it
was a little hard on her to have you----"

"So you're at it, too, are you?" her husband asked.

"At it, Ripley? I--I don't know what you mean. At--at what?"

"Attacking me. It's the last straw." He stamped into the hall, took his
hat from a table, put it on slammingly. "Well, dobdab!" he said. "I beg
you to excuse me. I'm on my way."

Mrs. Little, slack in her chair, whimpered, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" as the
front door clashed behind him and simultaneously a door opened in the
body of the house. Filmer came from the dining-room, entered the
living-room and stood before his mother. His expression was serious and
perhaps a shade too self-satisfied.

"So it's the same old story," he said. "The same old story." He liked
the phrase and himself for using it; so he tried it again. "Mother, why
has it always got to be the same old story?"

"What?" she asked. "What old story?"

"I mean," he explained, "I don't claim Goody's a really smart girl; but
I don't see why she can't exercise a little obedience and intelligence
in her dealings with Father, the way he says himself I do. A little
while ago, in this very room he told me I'm the only one that has any
and does, and I've even heard him say so when he didn't know I did. I
don't see why this same old story has to always go on the same way
practically every day. Father's a perfectly well-meaning man if you know
how to handle him. You got to humor him and show you understand him and
got a little sympathy, and he'll be all right. All he asks from this
family is a little----"

"Never mind!" His mother, finding his tone intolerable, interrupted him.
"I'm afraid your father only praised you because he's upset with Goody
about something, Filmer. I'm afraid you forget there've been certain
times in the past when he didn't find you so intelligent and obedient as
he believes he thinks you are now. Aren't you forgetting----"

"Oh, those?" Filmer thus dismissed the times to which she referred.
"They were just ippisodes. Listen, Mother; what is it he's upset with
Goody over? Was it anything else except the hullabaloo that went on last
night? Listen, Mother, was it----"

"Never mind, please. It's nothing you have anything to do with. You must
realize that in these dreadful days--just look at the newspapers!--we're
all very nervous and when there's any kind of disturbance at all
everybody jumps, especially businessmen, and most of all your poor
father."

"_I_ don't, Mother. You say everybody jumps. Look at me; I'm as calm
as----"

"Then try to stay so," Mrs. Little said, "and be very considerate
because it's true everybody's nerves are jumpy. Mine are, for instance,
right now, and if you stop to talk any longer, Filmer, you'll be late to
school."

"Always the same old cry," he said. "Always the same old cry, 'You'll be
late to school.' Whenever anything's wrong in this family and I so much
as dare to ask to use what little brains I got to help----"

"Your 'little' brains, Filmer?" His mother, in spite of her depression,
was faintly amused. "You mustn't be so mock-modest, Son. I'm sure you
don't for a minute forget your splendid school record or overhearing
Miss Hoapmiller's telling the Principal you were her brightest pupil."

He was hurt. "Don't I ever get to hear the last o' that? Just because I
thought it would please my parents and happened to mention it at home I
suppose I got to have it dinned into my ears all the rest o' my whole
life every time I ever----"

"Do go, Filmer!" his mother begged. "I'm sure you're late already; do
go."

"You seem to forget this is the last day of school," he said. "Vacation
commences tomorrow and being late the last day doesn't matter a
farthing's whistle. Not a farthing's whis----"

"Do go, Filmer!"

"Oh, certainly," he said. "But remember this: it's the last time. Up to
September it's the last time I can't be confided in what's wrong in this
family on account of I'll be late to school. After today that excuse
won't serve. I'll know all about this business before tomorrow anyway.
Good-by, Mother."

He left her coldly, and, when he returned in the middle of the
afternoon, having lunched at school, made good his promise to discover
the cause of the morning's domestic trouble. A long and probing
conversation he had with Gentry Poindexter in the empty garage put him
in possession of even more facts than had occurred, and he appeared at
the dinner table that evening sympathetically ready to be a partisan of
his father. Somewhat dampeningly, however, his sister was not present,
and Cousin Olita, answering a frowning inquiry of his, explained that
Goody had gone out to dine and dance.

"Where?" Ripley Little asked, and set down his soupspoon. "Where?"

"At the Green Valley Country Club," Mrs. Little replied, looking at her
plate.

"With that face? At the Green Valley Club with that face?"

"Gentry told me about her face," Filmer said. "I went upstairs to look
at it; but she had her door locked so I couldn't, and wouldn't open it
when I asked her. Well, I don't know I should have done this exactly,
Father; but I went around on the roof of the porch to Goody's window and
looked in and she was powdering and lipsticking. She's got a black eye
and adhesive plaster, and her underlip's about the size of a red Easter
egg and----"

"Filmer!" Cousin Olita laughed. "What a story! Don't exaggerate so."

"I don't know," Little said. "I don't know that it's much of an
exaggeration, unless her lip's gone down remarkably since this morning.
To me the unbelievable thing is that she'd be willing to exhibit it and
her other mutilations before an assembly of people who----"

"Now, Ripley." Mrs. Little, not looking at him, shook her head slightly.
"You really don't understand girls of Goody's generation. They love to
look like that nowadays in public."

"Yes," he said, "I forgot that. They do, jobjam 'em!"

Filmer restrained an impulse. It was to explain to his father that
defacements and other injuries sometimes added to the distinction of
one's appearance, offering the suggestion of accidents the result of
dash and daring. Appearing on a crutch at a party for instance, Filmer
felt, might even imply that one had been doing something pretty fancy
with an airplane; and about the next best thing was the look of having
got into trouble at eighty miles an hour in a car. The truth was that as
Goody hadn't been actually killed Filmer rather envied her the chance to
display her evidences of speed and action. He didn't say so, however,
and, after a short study of the expression upon his father's broad face,
decided to retain by silence the parental esteem in which he
complacently knew himself to be held. Filmer's thought was, "You can't
tell what he'll do. Most of the time these old people don't take things
the way you'd expect 'em to and it'll be a lot better for me to not say
anything right now but just go on being a comfort to him in his own way
whenever he thinks of Goody."

Filmer maintained this policy all evening. Quiet, sympathetic, he sat
near his father in the living-room and was careful to keep the radio
down to the barest audibility. When he rose to go up to bed he bade his
father goodnight in the gentle tones of one who comprehends everything.
He had a success.

"Goodnight, my boy," Ripley Little said. "Goodnight, my boy."




CHAPTER V


His father called Filmer "my boy" eight or nine times, and Goody nothing
at all, during the next several days. This had happened before; and
being the favorite child rapidly became, as usual, almost a commonplace
with Filmer. His whole first week of vacation, in fact, was rather a
dull one; his mind had found little to dwell upon. Precocious spottily,
though sievelike with a thousand minute vacancies, that mind was
accustomed to absorb textbook formulae more quickly than could most of
its competitors; and in his pardonable statement to his parents he had
not exaggerated Miss Hoapmiller's praise of him. Now, with no homework
to fill the loose hours, and no daily triumphs over an audience of
slower intellects, he almost missed the dear old schoolroom, almost
could wish himself there again.

Fragrant mid-June and a torrid pea-green morning found him without
engagements, stagnant in idea and almost without impulses. Nevertheless,
as his aimless feet bore him out to stand in the portico after
breakfast, a change took place; for a ruling element of conduct
automatically departed out of him with the very closing of the door
behind him. This element might be called the habit of domestic
guardedness. Filmer indoors, and open to family observation, was one
thing; Filmer at school was another; and Filmer outside of either home
or school was yet another.

He yawned without shielding the aperture, stretched his arms, and then,
moved by a vague prompting, went out to the shady sidewalk, and strolled
southward. Beneath a hot blue sky and a few motionless cotton clouds he
sauntered, not thinking formed thoughts, yet as aware of himself as if
he had been a celebrated personage observed in every look and action.

Though he was short for his age, sometimes mortifyingly so, his style,
he knew, was better than merely good. He was hatless, of course, proving
his hair's abhorrence of regimentation. His green jersey was not only
wrong side front but wrong side out, too, so that the stitchings of "44"
could be seen upon his back. His hot trousers, of a purpled blue, were
incomparably baggy and shapeless, and no color at all could be ascribed
to his once russet shoes. He walked loungingly, swinging his arms more
than appeared needful, and now and then he moved his jaws as if he were
chewing, though he wasn't. He thought it looked well to appear to be
chewing something and the action reassured him, helped him to make the
glance of his eye what he wished it to be--disdainful of all life and
property except his own.

Turning eastward at the next corner, he came upon a colleague hung
spineless in a gateway, a boy who also wore, skeletonized, "44" upon his
back. Unlacing his limbs, he joined Filmer in the stroll, and, as
greeting, inquired, "Whaddy know, Fil?"

"Nertsy-nerts," Filmer replied fashionably; then, as they walked on
together, he drew forth a package of cigarettes, lighted one, and
proffered the package. "Got the nerve to smoke yet, Mister Charlsworth
Beck?"

"You know what I'd get," Charlsworth said. "Listen, I thought your
father was going to give you a car on your twenty-first birthday if you
never smoke up to then. So how----"

"Is him saying so the same as me saying so?" Filmer asked. "If my family
want to think promising me a car six or seven years from now's the same
as me taking the all-tobacco pledge, why, the way I look at it, Charl,
it's simply let 'em sizzle in their own grease."

"Yes, but look, Fil. Don't you want to get that car when you're
twenty-one years old?"

"Might or might not." Filmer was lofty. "Listen. In the first place I
don't hardly expect to ever live to be twenty-one years old, and in the
second place, look, supposing I _would_ live that long, look, is it my
business to go puffing around the family? What they don't know won't
hurt 'em, will it?" Again he was heartless. "Just let 'em sizzle in
their own grease!"

"But listen a minute, Fil; look here a minute. The reason I don't smoke,
myself, it's because my mother can always tell. The only thing ever
fixes my breath exactly right is a raw onion, and most of the time you
simply can't find one, and look, I hate 'em in the first place. What you
do about your breath, Fil?"

Filmer remained superior. "Yes, a good many fellows that smoke away from
the family have trouble with their breath. I used to worry some over
mine till I worked out just the right substance for it. There's just one
substance that really does it. It's Eucalina."

"What?"

"Eucalina." Filmer took from his pocket a small flat blue tin box.
Charlsworth looked at the box, saw in white letters the name "Eucalina",
had a sketchy view of smaller print, "One every two hours until
relieved", and his eye caught the final words, lower down... "should
be regulated by the advice of a physician." Filmer threw away what was
left of his cigarette, opened the tin box, took out a small bluish-white
tablet, and placed it in his mouth.

Charlsworth looked at him admiringly. "Say, listen, Fil. Isn't that kind
of medicine or something? Isn't it kind of risky maybe?"

"Might be--for some people," Filmer said easily, and restored the box to
his pocket. "You got to learn to stand the taste; but I'm used to 'em."

Charlsworth's admiration increased. "Look! I've noticed sometimes you
smell like kind of inside a hospital or somewheres. Don't your family
ever notice you smell that way, Fil?"

"Yes; but there's medicated soap in the hall lavatory at our house and I
just say I been washing in it."

"Yes, but----" Charlsworth struggled interiorly with thoughts. "Well,
look, f'r instance, Fil. Your family use that same soap sometimes,
themselves, don't they? So look; they know _they_ don't smell like you
do, themselves, so when they notice you're smelling and you tell 'em
it's the soap, and they know it don't make them smell, themselves, but
you do, why, listen, don't they think that's kind of funny and ask you
why you smell when they don't?"

"No, they don't." Filmer uttered a slight scornful laugh. "When I smell
and they don't and I say it's the soap, well, their minds don't go on
working. They just think, 'That's kind of funny', and quit and think
about something else. It's the way their minds work and it's the way
most people's minds work." Then he added, "It's why if you got a few
brains you can do just about what you like to in this world."

"Boy! That's telling 'em!" Charlsworth said. His friend had used an
expression that pleased him and he now made it his own. "Do your own way
and just let the family sizzle in their own grease, huh? 'S the way I
do, too, Fil." Then he became inquiring. "Look, Fil. What do you do when
they say you simply got to do something you don't want to?"

"Me? I say to myself, 'Use the bean, old kid; use the bean.'"

Charlsworth's lips moved thoughtfully, repeating this prescription,
committing it to memory. The two boys, sauntering round the block, had
now reached the corner of the shady street upon which Filmer lived, and
here Charlsworth began to walk more lingeringly. He came to a stop.

"Look," he said. "You heard Antoinette Fry's going to give a party?"

"Her?" Filmer stopped, too, and in all sincerity was disgusted. "Listen.
That dame could give a million parties; I wouldn't be caught dead at
'em!"

"Why? Are you worse sourer on Antoinette Fry than you are on all of 'em,
Fil?"

"Me? I wouldn't look at Antoinette Fry if she was in the electric chair
and they gave me a ticket! I wouldn't----"

Charlsworth spoke hushedly in warning. "Listen, Fil; she might hear
you!"

He made a nervous gesture toward the house before which they'd paused;
and Filmer, glancing over the hedge that bordered the sidewalk, saw a
girl sitting upon the verandah steps, prattling gayly to two boys. She
was a beautiful little creature, animated, fair-haired and dainty. The
blonde hair was waved glossily; her gold-figured blue blouse and her
white linen skirt were new and unspotted. Her short white socks were
inconsistently protected by small but adult high-heeled toeless blue
slippers.

Filmer openly sneered. "Look at Bill and Slops listening to that dame
like she was the supreme toots of this world! Not me! She'll haf to show
a few brains before she ever gets Filmer Little to----"

Charlsworth interrupted timidly. "Look, Fil. Say listen. Look. Let's
just go in and----"

"What?" Filmer, insulted, stared at him. "You want to go in _there_? You
ask _me_ to go in there and----"

"But I told you I heard she's going to give a party, didn't I?"
Charlsworth said, in apologetic explanation. "Come on! We'll just go in
and laugh and show sarcasm at everything they say and----"

"Goo' by, siss!" Filmer turned on his heel and slouched toward home.
"Goo' by, siss-boy! Go on in and watch her wag her old toes and wave her
old fingernails she's been sticking in her mother's strawberry jam! Goo'
by, siss-boy!"

Charlsworth, depressed, joined the lively group on the verandah; and
Filmer, having swaggeringly passed before the two next adjacent houses,
paused to enact a fragment of drama for which the inspiration came upon
him out of nowhere. Chewing nothing faster, but otherwise cool and
deliberate, he elevated his left hand in which he held an invisible
baseball. Then, enclosing this intangible with his right hand also, he
lifted two fingers as a signal, "wound up", elevated his left foot to
the height of his head and pitched a miraculous curve. "Hot
zinga_zooey_!" he said, and, squatting upon his haunches, became an
imperturbably chewing professional catcher, received the ball in an
imaginary glove, said "Smack!" and, immediately an umpire, announced
curtly, "Striker out!" This, for nobody's benefit but his own, gave him
a little satisfaction. He ate another Eucalina tablet and walked slowly
into his own yard.

In one of the striped canvas chairs under a tree at the edge of the
greenly simmering lawn, Cousin Olita sat knitting. As she glanced toward
Filmer, upon his approach, her nose-glasses twinkled affectionately in a
disk of sunshine that came through the foliage above her.

"That's a nice boy," she said, for no reason. "Come sit down in the
shade; that's right. You've got that medical smell again, Filmer. Your
mother and I were talking about it yesterday---- I mean about your
having it from the soap when nobody else does. I told her it must mean
something about your constitution. It might be one of these new things
people have, and before it goes any deeper I told her she ought to send
you to some crack right-up-to-the-minute doctor and he ought to give you
a nice thorough examination all over. So often lately I've noticed your
smelling like----"

"Is it your business or mine?" Filmer asked sternly. "You 'tend to
yourself and I'll 'tend to myself. If any doctor tries to examine me
he'll see what he gets, kindly remember when you go around discussing my
affairs with my mother, please."

Cousin Olita's mind wandered from the smell. "Your sister's having such
a nice morning, Filmer. She's gone out riding."

"Riding!" Filmer exclaimed. "Do you mean to state that after what she
did to Father's car she's now permitted to run up bills hiring horses
while I'm not granted even the most niggardly allowance but haf to
depend on handouts and pittancers----"

"Pittancers, Filmer? Don't you mean pittances?"

"No matter what I mean," he said. "Goody and her gang absolutely
destroyed the best car this family's got, the one Father uses for
himself. He had to have Crappio sell it for junk, and now, on top of
that if he lets her hire horses----"

"No, no!" Cousin Olita laughed. "I never can remember when you ought to
say 'riding' and when you ought to say 'driving'. Of course I was too
young for the generation that used to talk about going out buggy-riding;
but when I lived in Urnabula and one of the young gentlemen would try to
steal a march and get me away from the others for the evening he'd
usually ask me if I didn't want to go out auto-riding with him. Of
course 'auto-riding' is probably looked upon as an out-of-dated way of
putting it nowadays; but---- What's the matter, Filmer?"

Her question was evoked by the startled incredulity of his expression.
"You say some of 'em tried to steal a march and get you away from----"
he began; then stopped, not because of tactfulness or to conceal his
total unbelief but because of a thought more urgent. "Listen, Cousin
Olita, it doesn't make any difference which you think Goody's doing
right now, 'riding' or 'driving'; but what's she doing it in or on?"

"What? You mean what's she out riding in, Filmer?"

"That's what I said, didn't I? In or on what?"

"Why, in the other car, Filmer. It got back from Crappio's this morning
just a little while after your father took the bus downtown, so
Goody----"

"She did?" Filmer rose from the canvas chair in which he'd been
reclining and stood rigid. "She's actually had the front to take that
car out?"

"Your mother said she could, Filmer."

"What! My mother let her? She actually let that girl----" Filmer was
unable to express his desperation by his voice alone; he threw himself
full length upon the grass. "Hasn't anybody in this universe got one
particle of common sense left, not one single particle?"

"What's the matter, Filmer?"

He sat up and passionately told Cousin Olita what was the matter; for
herein was touched the sorest spot in all his bruised longings. Over and
over, with acute feeling, the subject had been debated between himself
and all the other members of his family and sometimes Gentry Poindexter,
Filmer always holding the affirmative and everybody else the negative.

"If it's come to this," he said, toward the conclusion of his present
oration to Cousin Olita. "If it's come to where a girl that thinks the
radiator's what runs the engine and has no business on earth to have a
driver's license, and utterly ruined my father's own car just a few
nights ago---- If it's come to my mother granting permission to that
girl to take out the only other car this family's got the very minute it
comes from Crappio's where her driving laid it up, while I'm not even
allowed to touch a wheel when I'm as good a driver as there is in this
city, and my family fall back on the mere driveling legalistic excuse
that I haven't got a driver's license because----"

"That isn't the only reason, Filmer," Cousin Olita interrupted, knitting
placidly. "Don't you remember that day of the family picnic when your
father's car was bran' new and you got in it when nobody was looking and
started it going and that cow and----"

"Listen!" Filmer said fiercely. "Did those animals receive one iota of
injuries? Did my father haf to pay one iota of damages for that cow or
that calf? I ask you to answer me!"

"No, they were only frightened; but you know what the new car looked
like after the tree kept you from hitting them, Filmer; and don't you
remember how the farmer that owned them----"

"Listen! Everybody's got to have an accident when he's only a beginner,
hasn't he? How old was I when I had that accident? I ask you to answer
me. How old was I?"

"Well--let me see. It wasn't so long ago. You were----"

"Not long ago?" Filmer shouted. "I was thirteen years old. Only
thirteen. That's how long ago it was!"

"Thirteen," Cousin Olita said reflectively. "Yes, I remember; it was
about a year ago."

"What! Listen! Do you ever expect to make a mathematician? Use the bean,
can't you? What's thirteen from fifteen? Use the bean! What's thirteen
from fifteen?"

"Two," Cousin Olita replied. "But the picnic was on Memorial Day, the
thirtieth of May, I remember now; and you won't be fifteen for two or
three months yet, Filmer. So it's only a little while since you were
thirteen, you see."

"I give up!" Filmer said. "I'm practically fifteen; but thirteen from
fifteen don't leave two any more. Two whole years _have_ gone by in
spite o' that, though--but what's the use! Here we've got a Mayor that
won't give you a driver's license on merit and lets a girl that don't
know a spark plug from a tail-light have one, and _I'm_ supposed to do
nothing with my time while she rolls all over the United States with her
old Ham Ellers just because he's got wavy hair and such a boyish smile!
I heard her say he had to a couple her gal-friends, myself. 'Such a
boyish smile'! Wouldn't _that_ poison the cats I ask you!"

"But, Filmer, why wouldn't Hamilton Ellers have a nice boyish smile?
He's only nineteen, maybe twenty. Besides, what makes you think she's
out riding with him? She isn't. As soon as the car was delivered, she
telephoned to somebody she likes better and he got the day off from
business right away and was here in a jiffy and they jumped in the car
and----"

"Who?" Filmer asked scornfully. "Who got here in a jiffy and what's a
jiffy?"

"It's a hurry, Filmer. Norman Peel."

"Norman Peel," Filmer echoed. "Why, she never----"

"Goody likes Norman Peel," Cousin Olita said, smiled fondly, and, with a
plump hand, pushed higher the cluster of large blonde curls above her
pink forehead. "She never really got to know Norman until that party
last Tuesday night, she tells me; but she's been talking about him every
minute since. I think it's so nice when young people fall terribly in
love."

"You do?" Filmer rose to his feet and indelicately made gagging noises.
"You think----"

"It's pretty." Cousin Olita, to Filmer's view, looked
idiotic--unmitigatedly so. "I've never known Goody to seem so much like
being head over heels in love before. It's sweet."

Cousin Olita and her thoughts of love had become repulsive to Filmer;
and, to make clear that they hurt his stomach, he placed both hands over
it and went stoopingly into the house.




CHAPTER VI


Entrance through an open French window brought him into the dining-room,
and here he remembered something. On the previous evening, while "the
family" sat elsewhere, he had retired quietly to the dining-room to read
a borrowed well-worn work reputed liable to confiscation and known to
him and his male circle as Bokakio. Threatened by interruption, he'd
hurriedly thrust the volume into a drawer of the small sideboard; and
now, as nobody was near, he decided to retrieve it and do a little more
summer reading.

The humidity of the weather made the drawer stick, and, resenting this,
he jerked the handle powerfully. The drawer yielded; and so, to an
extent, did the whole sideboard. A fine old rose-pink glass compote, a
trophy of one of his mother's antiquing excursions, slid picturesquely
over a polished mahogany surface and dispersed itself upon the floor. It
was accompanied by another antique, a Sheffield teapot, which naturally
suffered less and only had its spout bent.

Filmer was annoyed. He was often accompanied by breakage--seldom a week
passed without his dismembering some useless, prized old thing--but
nobody except himself ever became accustomed to it; and he now realized
he'd have to listen to a lot of dismal blah-blah about the compote
before the day was over. That wouldn't be all, either: the subject would
be brought up time and time again in the future, long after he was
thoroughly sick of it.

He replaced the teapot, leaving the bent spout in shadow toward the
wall, so that his mother wouldn't notice the difference, probably, until
the next time she asked somebody to tea. Then, having used a foot to
push the ruins of the compote beneath the sideboard, he brought forth
the book, closed the drawer, went out to the garage, sat upon a stool,
and resumed his perusal of Bokakio. As he read, he absently smoked
cigarettes, lighting one at the end of another, until finally he was
surprised to find the package empty. By that time, however, he heard a
musical gong belling indoors, Gentry Poindexter's announcement of lunch.

Filmer placed Bokakio carefully under a large box of junk; and then,
fearing that he perhaps reeked of tobacco, he washed his hands and face
at a sink in the garage and made use of two Eucalina tablets. Remains of
these were still precautionarily in his mouth as he came into the
dining-room and sat down beside Cousin Olita, opposite Goody. His father
was present. Ripley Little often lunched at home, having resigned from
his downtown club in May 1940 when one of the new members asked him if
he thought the President could be persuaded to accept a third term.

"That the way to behave?" Ripley Little gave the favorite a surprisingly
cold glance. "No greeting? No courtesy? Just clop-clop in and flop down
in your chair and begin guzzling? No apologies for what you've done?
Nothing?"

Filmer looked hurt. "For what I've done? Father, I haven't been doing
anything I know of."

Mrs. Little shook her head sadly. "Filmer, of course you know what you
did; you couldn't have forgotten it this soon, and I'm sure he's sorry,
Ripley."

"Then why doesn't he say so?" Little asked. "He's a mystery. How does he
manage to destroy property by merely walking into a room? It must have
been so; time and again he does it. There wasn't anything on the
sideboard to interest him. How could----"

"I was outdoors when I heard the crash," Cousin Olita said. "I didn't
come in, though, because he doesn't often hurt himself much. Maybe he
got dizzy and reached for something to steady himself without looking.
It _might_ have something to do with that medical smell he often has
because just a little while before I'd been asking him if he oughtn't to
have the doctor for it. I _do_ think he ought to, because I notice it
gets stronger and stronger." She glanced about brightly. "Don't you all
smell it again right now?"

"Smell it?" Little repeated. "Smell it? It gets into the food. As soon
as he came into the room I began to taste it and since he's sat down I
can't taste anything else." After a busy hot morning downtown, Ripley
Little had come home by hot bus, wilted; he'd bathed and donned a new
"tropic suit" of pale linen. Then, somewhat refreshed, he had been told
by Gentry Poindexter of the loss of the valuable compote. The favored
child was responsible, no question; and the father didn't wish to be
hard on him; but the smell, on top of the destruction, was trying. "You
didn't radiate this odor at breakfast, Filmer. How do you manage to do
it now?"

"I guess," Filmer said apologetically, "I guess I must of got some of
that soap on my hands again from washing."

"Soap?" his father asked. "How do you expect to wash without getting
soap on your _hands_? Do you usually wash with your elbows?" He stared
down the table at his wife. "Can't that soap be changed? He seems to be
allergic to it and maybe Olita's right; possibly he ought to see a
specialist. A good epidermist might be able to tell us why the rest of
us can use that soap without----"

He was interrupted by a little accident. Filmer, nervous, had applied
too much force to the cutting of a chop upon his plate. The chop, not
tender, slippery with the juices wherein it lay, leaped from Filmer's
plate and came to rest temporarily upon his father's new linen lap.

Little cried out unhappily, and, making the matter worse with a napkin
soaked in ice water from a goblet, spoke testily of his son, of the
price of clothes, and of the cost of compotes believed to be of Bristol
glass; but he had to interrupt himself for hygienic reasons. "Stop
that!" he commanded. "Job jam it, going to eat it after it's been on the
floor?" Again he addressed his wife. "Almost fifteen years old and he'll
eat anything--anything! Does he care where it's been? He does not! Only
the other day I saw him drop an all-day sucker on a dobdab ant-hill and
then eat it--or at least he _would_ have eaten it, ants and all, if I
hadn't taken it away from him."

Abashed, Filmer nevertheless defended himself. "The other day? Why, my
goodness, Father! When that happened I wasn't hardly over nine years
old. I only----"

"'Only'!" Little said. "Only ruined my clothes! And then going to eat it
right off the floor! Why, when I was your age if my father had to talk
to me as I'm compelled to----"

Sunny Cousin Olita spoke to Goody in a caressing voice. "You had a nice
morning with your new friend, didn't you, dearie?"

"Just beautiful," Goody said, and, as her face was all right again,
looked better than beautiful herself. Color was unusually high in her
young cheeks; her voice had something new in it--a hushed and honeyed
lingering, a rhapsodied little drawl. "Beautiful," she said dreamily.
"He thinks we ought to have a hedge in front of the house instead of the
fence, to be like the rest of the neighborhood. He likes to sing duets,
Mother; so I've called up Madam Wurtza and arranged to begin vocal
lessons, two a week. It's only four dollars a lesson. He said----"

"Who?" Ripley Little stared at his daughter. "_Who_ is it that wants me
to take down our fence and put up a hedge to get frost-killed and's
already costing me eight dollars a week for music lessons? Who is this
new----"

"He's a friend of mine," Goody replied, not eating but gazing wistfully
at the tablecloth. "He says this city ought to have lots better
architecture, Cousin Olita. He says for instance our house shouldn't
have that side gable on it, and either the Watsons next door ought to
paint their porch white or we ought to change ours to yellow. He's right
about that, don't you think, Cousin Olita? He says I ought to send for a
Chow from the Archblow Kennels on Long Island."

Ripley Little also had stopped eating, though he grippingly retained his
knife in his right hand. "A what from where?" he asked. "Say that
again."

"A darling Chow puppy, Father. He said to get you to wire for it and to
have your bank wire the Archblow Kennels you're good for it and----"

"I'm not!" her father interrupted. "I'm not good for it. If I ever see a
Chow in this house I'll be bad for it. In the meantime I'm asking again:
Who is this new family adviser you----"

"It's so strange," Goody said, looking dreamier and dreamier. "I've
lived my whole life in the same town with him and thought I knew him,
but never really understood a thing about his nature until the other
night at a party something urged me to stop dancing and walk about the
lawn with him, listening to the music. Then all at once I saw how
different he is and's almost the first one I ever talked to that takes
the serious view of life, and wanted to tell me about capital and labor
and Hitlerism and these old American reactionaries and how few people
understand the vast problems our generation's had wished on us. He
talked about you, a little, Father. He thinks in your business you're
maybe following old-line methods too closely. He thinks most of you
businessmen downtown----"

"Who does?" her father asked. "Who thinks I'm following old-line methods
and wants to tell everybody downtown how to run their businesses?"
Little paused for a reply; but, as Goody only smiled absently, he
continued: "Let me get this straight. You met a boy at a party who's got
you taking music lessons at four dollars a crack to sing duets with him,
and's going to solve vast problems and rip out our fence and the side
gable and paint the porch different and have my bank support my credit
for the purchase of a Chow pup. I ask you who----" Ripley Little's
already incensed breathing unfortunately inhaled from the direction of
his son. "Job jam it!" he said muffledly. "Move farther away! Move down
towards Cousin Olita, can't you? Let _her_ have it a while!" He looked
protuberantly at his wife. "I was talking to old Colonel Roland O.
Whiting yesterday, the Americanest man I know; he's ninety-eight and a
half years old, the last of the Fighting Whitings, all four of 'em Civil
War officers and lifelong friends of my great-uncle, Brigadier General
Cuneo Ripley Little that I was named for, as none of you ever remembers
no matter how often I've told you. He said to me----"

"Who, Father?" Filmer asked, confused though his interest was aroused.
"Was it your great-uncle that you're named for, or one of the Fighting
Whitings that said this to you? Which did, and what did he----"

"I'm speaking to your mother," Little said. "At least, I'm trying to. In
conversation with me yesterday old Colonel Roland O. Whiting declared
solemnly that this whole earth's now become an insane asylum, and is he
right! Europe, Asia, Africa, a man's own country, a man's own business,
a man's own home life--it's all jazz-banged to flinders. It's complete!"

He spoke with sincere conviction. At the moment almost all of the
gentler impulses, including the instinctive fondnesses of fatherhood,
were motionless within him. Filmer, as much as Goody, appeared to be an
inexplicable creature who contained no trace of his own or any other
intelligence. Without the slightest sense of responsibility, Filmer
ruined a suit of clothes, the taste of food, a fifty-five-dollar compote
and ate off the floor, all within the same hour--and he hadn't much more
than started the day, at that! You couldn't even tell if he'd be alive
by sunset. As for Goody, instead of trying to do something to make up
for the car she'd transmuted to junk, she plainly tended to slide into a
state of unpleasing lovesickness brought on, apparently, by the
half-witted conversation of an adolescent Youth Movement spouter at a
dance. Mrs. Little wasn't doing anything to stop any of this, and Cousin
Olita seldom came indoors when it rained unless frightened by thunder.
Ripley Little felt lonely, all alone among shapes that looked like
thinking beings but weren't.

He applied more ice water to his lap, with poor results, and asked
huskily, "Since Goody seems unable to mention the sacred name, will
somebody else kindly try to tell me just who is this refashioner of our
family's destinies, this Walking Brain?"

"Why, I thought I'd mentioned his name," Goody said. "You're getting an
entirely wrong impression; it's somebody you like, Father. The other day
when you spoke of him to me I was silly enough never to have appreciated
him; but it was only because I didn't really know him then. It's Norman
Peel, Father."

"Norm----" Little began, stopped abruptly and stared at her
suspiciously. His son, misinterpreting the father's expression,
believing it to be one of indignation, thought to regain lost favor.

"Norman Peel!" Filmer said jeeringly. "She's telling you straight.
That's the new one, Father; everybody says so. She's gone plumb mush
over that spectacled, dish-faced----"

"What!" The dreamy Goody came to life; her eyes flashed. "You dare? You
who go around smelling, breaking everything and eating ants! _You!_ Why,
you aren't worthy even to speak the name of----"

"I am too!" Filmer shouted. "Why, even Norman Peel's own cousins say
that guy's the most egotistical guy they ever knew; they say he's
practically got meegomania. They say----"

"Mother!" Goody rose emotionally. "If this is to be permitted at your
table I for one decline to sit here and listen to it. For one, I ask to
be excused!"

"That's merely sex," Filmer said, addressing his father informatively,
as Goody left the room. "She'd finished her lunch anyhow and she's been
nothing on earth but pure sex practically as long as I've known her.
It's all that's behind this eight-dollars-a-week duet idea; though I
don't say it's sex exactly that makes her want to buy a Chow--a Chow or
any dog at all might be a good idea--but the rest of it's nothing but.
For instance, take all this hooey about changing the fence and painting
the porch yellow and cutting out the gable: Doesn't that betray she'd
ruin our whole place just to----"

"Have you finished your lunch?" his father asked. "If you have----"

"Oh, all right." Filmer rose, aggrieved. "At least I'm old enough to
grasp when my few opinions aren't thought to be desired." He left the
table proudly.

Little, preparing to go, himself, glanced frowningly at Cousin Olita and
then at his wife. "Well, what is it?" he asked. "Was she putting on an
act at me? Was she trying to put something over on me?"

"What like, Ripley?" Mrs. Little said. "I don't see----"

"I mean about Norman Peel." His suspiciousness increased. "Just because
I happened to mention Norman Peel the other day as a superior young man
and----"

"Oh, no, no!" Cousin Olita and Mrs. Little both spoke together, and then
Mrs. Little continued, "It's only too genuine, Ripley! I don't think
she's ever been so much this way before."

"No, she really hasn't," Cousin Olita added. "Genuine? I should say so!
I flatter myself I know the real thing when I see it, Cousin Ripley.
It's lovely to watch when it springs up this way, and I think you did a
wise thing when you pushed him at her. I'm sure he's all you told her he
was and you can always be glad you had a hand in it."

"It didn't sound like him," Little said. "What she quoted him as saying
didn't seem to me characteristic. When I've seen Norman Peel downtown
he's always appeared to be a bright young fellow anxious to get on in
business and----"

"But that's different," Mrs. Little explained. "When they're with each
other they're often almost the very opposite of what they are with us,
Ripley. He's a serious young man; but of course Goody'd make him feel
much more at home with her than he would with you, don't you think? No,
I'm sure she told us entirely truthfully just what he----"

"Yes, indeed!" Cousin Olita added this confirmation. "Goody admires him
too much to change a word she heard fall from his lips."

"All right," Little said. "All right, all right! I suppose nothing
whatever's been heard from the unparalleled snail, A. P. Crappio? He
hasn't condescended to telephone when he thinks our remaining car will
be out of the shop?"

"Yes, he has, though." Cousin Olita, rising to go, was benign. "You'll
be glad to hear, Cousin Ripley, Crappio sent it back this morning, and
it looks _so_ nice."

Gentry Poindexter had come in to clear the table, and Little spoke to
him. "Bring it around, Gentry. You can take me downtown in it and finish
your dishes after you get back."

The colored man went hastily to the pantry door, bearing a single
saltcellar on his tray. "Miss Goody already tooken it, Mr. Little."

"What?"

"Yes, suh; jes' see her rollin' out the driveway from the window. She
already out pleasure-drivin'. Guess still go' be bus for you, Mr.
Little, yes, suh."

The pantry door swung quickly, removing Gentry Poindexter from the sight
of his employer, who turned to speak to Mrs. Little and Cousin Olita.
They, however, were no longer in the room.




CHAPTER VII


Ripley Little went out through what appeared to be a humanly empty house
and reached the sidewalk, on his way to the bus, before he remembered
what had happened to his trousers and began to talk to himself about
them and other matters. He returned, made the necessary exchange in his
room, and, when he came downstairs, found his son awaiting him in the
hall below.

"Listen, Father," Filmer said, sympathetic earnestly. "Cousin Olita
claims why you got to walk in the hot sun to the bus and then crowd in
and rattle around all the way downtown instead of in a car you're
certainly the owner of, it's because Goody's been so used to using it
she didn't think. Cousin Olita claims Goody's excusable on account of
being in such a hurry not to miss any of the holiday Norman Peel worked
his firm for; but I, for one, don't think that's a fair statement or
that Cousin Olita uses her bean in the slightest."

"Well?" Little walked slowly toward the open front door. "What of it?"

"If you'd just listen a minute----" Filmer begged, and his father
indulged him; they paused in the doorway. "I could have saved all this
and you'd be in that car now if I'd been really given the chance,"
Filmer said. "I was going to tell you at lunch about it was back from
Crappio's; but nobody gave me much opportunity. What I'd like to ask you
to remember is she's out with it again while I'm not permitted even to
lay a single finger on a wheel. All those hours while everybody else is
doing what they enjoy, what do _I_ do? Hunt four-leaf clovers in the
grass with Cousin Olita? Is that what I get to do, Father?"

There was a quavering sincerity in the young voice, and it touched the
father. "Maybe you'd better go to a movie," Ripley Little said. "Here,
my boy." He gave Filmer half a dollar, went out to the sidewalk, and,
mopping his forehead and the broad back of his neck, turned toward the
distant corner where he'd catch his bus.

Filmer was gratified by the half dollar, though he didn't know whether
he'd use part of it on a movie or not. For the present, preferring to
entertain himself with a little marksmanship, he went upstairs to his
own room and returned with a small implement that he owned. This was a
"slingshot" or miniature catapult made of a metal fork, two stout strips
of rubber and a bit of leather, and, although Filmer had long passed the
age (or thought he had) when such toys meant much in his life, he felt
that it might now afford him perhaps a half hour's pleasure. He gathered
some pebbles and fragments of crushed stone from the driveway, and
walked toward the canvas chairs under the big tree at the side of the
lawn, intending to sit and shoot at such robins and sparrows as might
come within range; but, perceiving that Cousin Olita was strolling in
the same direction, he went round to the back yard.

There for a while he amused himself and a few birds by shooting at them;
then, remembering that he'd left Bokakio in the midst of an important
passage, he put the slingshot in his hip-pocket, retired into the garage
and resumed his reading. Much of it was disappointing; but he persisted,
plugging ahead through the interminable verbiage of the classic work and
feeling himself only a little rewarded for his efforts. At last he
yawned, rose from his stool, returned the book to the floor under the
junk box, strolled languidly out to the sidewalk and sauntered
northward. As he passed before the third house in that direction,
Antoinette Fry ran out to the hedge and called to him.

"Filmer Little! Wait a minute, Filmer. Do me a favor? Please do, Filmer;
that's a dearie."

"Listen, dame!" Filmer paused. "Don't call me that. Believe me or not,
I'm particular who I let have liberties with me. State your favor, if
you got to, and I promise on my sincere oath I won't do it."

"You won't?" Antoinette looked at him pleadingly over the top of the
hedge, which was just to her chin. "Please! You're going to Zorky's
Rialto Neighborhood Theater, aren't you? Well, I had a date to meet
Slops and Charl Beck there for the second afternoon show; but I can't
because my mother had to go out and she's expecting a long-distance call
from crazy Aunt Hannah whether she's coming tomorrow or not, and I haf
to stay home to get the call, no matter how long it takes, so I can't
meet 'em and it's awfully late now; the second show's prob'ly started.
You'll tell the boys for me, won't you, Filmer? I'll think you're simply
precious."

"Listen here," Filmer began. "Look, dame, didn't I just inform you I'm
particular who I let----"

"Now, Filmer!" Antoinette's blue eyes, over the hedge, all at once
became deeply personal, implied a mystic emotion. Only lately she'd
learned how to do this; and almost simultaneously she'd begun the
premature plucking of her eyebrows, the use of lipstick, the staining of
her nails and the wearing of high-heeled open-toed slippers. As the
hostile Filmer stared at her, she felt a strong prompting to overcome
his indifference; the afternoon had been boring, without any boys at all
about her. "I--I know what you think of me, Filmer," she said in the
hushed tone she was learning to use at the right times. "Couldn't you
stop hating me long enough for me to show you how unjust and everything
it is? Filmer, _I_ don't care whether you give the other boys my
message."

"Phooey!" He laughed harshly. "Look, if you knew my opinions about you,
Antoinette Fry, you couldn't stand yourself. You'd let out just one
screech and die on the grass."

Antoinette was put upon her mettle. "I--I know, Filmer. All my life
you've just despised me. It's because you've always thought I didn't
appreciate you. It's because you think I'm too dumb to see you're
different from any other boy."

"What?" Suddenly and powerfully interested, he nevertheless tried to
remain scornful. "Look, gal, what you think you're talking about now?"

"You," Antoinette said, making the pronoun long. "You, Filmer." She
looked away from him and pathos came into her muted voice. "You--you
feel contempt for me because you think I don't mind how you look down on
me, and I expect you're going to scorn the invitation to my party next
week, even with a magician that gets out of handcuffs, because I'm
repulsive to you for not showing I appreciate you're the one different
one."

Filmer got red all over, both inside and outside his clothes. There were
doings within his chest; faint explosions seemed to take place in his
ears. Something brilliant and strange was happening to and in him, he
didn't know what; but the thought of going on to the movies became
repellent. "Lis--listen, Antoinette," he said thickly, and, retracing
his steps to the gate, entered the yard.

He tried to use his accustomed slouch as he approached her; but his legs
felt weightless and his knees unmanageable. He tried to seem to be
chewing something; but his jaw was undependable. He tried to put utter
contempt into his glance; but his eyelids didn't work correctly--they
became independent of him and blinked. Antoinette stood before him
meekly; but was not the Antoinette Fry known to him. That old dame,
three doors up his street, long believed mere meat for squirrels, a
yaller-haired maker of sap-heads into sissies, was now in a trice
ethereally transformed--a heavenly shape made of prismatic light.

"Lis--listen, Antoinette," he said again. "What is all this hooey about
me being all so different and everything?"

She touched his arm, and sweetened stars seemed to burst softly about
him. "Let's sit down on the nice warm grass, Filmer, and I'll tell you."
They sat and she began to tell him. "Of course in your eyes, Filmer, I'm
just nobody; but, whatever you think, I'm not too dumb to look up to
you. Everybody knows you're different. Even Charl Beck this morning said
you're the most reckless boy in town and don't care what you do
absolutely."

"Well, _that_ much is so," Filmer admitted. "I don't care a thing I do."

"Well, that's different, isn't it?" Antoinette said. "I think it's
marvelous. Charl said you take some kind of tablets that he saw on the
box ought to be regulated by a physician. He says you can eat 'em just
the same as if they were candy."

"Oh, you mean good ole Eucalina?" Filmer laughed negligently. "That's
nothing." He brought forth the box of Eucalina tablets and let her see
the inscription on the lid. "You can have one; but it'd prob'ly make you
kind of sick, Antoinette. You haf to get used to 'em; they're pretty
strong."

Carelessly he put three tablets in his mouth; but Antoinette protested.
"Filmer Little! Why, I bet that's prob'ly dangerous!"

"Might be for some individuals." To dazzle her, he added three more
tablets to those he already contained. He'd never before eaten anything
like so many at once; but he didn't think they'd hurt him, and even if
they did--a little maybe--he didn't believe it would be immediately, so
what was the difference?

Antoinette touched his arm again. "Filmer, you don't care a thing you
do! Would you give up taking 'em if I asked you to, Filmer?"

"Well----" He ate another tablet. "Well--I might or I might not."

"Please don't take any more, Filmer. It scares me. Give 'em to me,
Filmer, so I'll know you're safe." She put her hand upon the box and
tugged at it. Her fingers touched his, so did her shoulder; her face
came close to his--he was enveloped in an ineffable odor of violet
sachet and she in a powerful one of medicaments. His grasp upon the box
became flabby; his whole being was like that, too, and Antoinette
captured the Eucalina tablets, or, at least, what remained of them.
"There! I'll keep this little box, Filmer. I'll keep it in my bureau
drawer."

"What----" he asked, breathless and swallowing feebly. "What--what for,
Antoinette?"

"Oh, just because."

"Antoinette, I--I guess I _am_ pretty different, kind of. When did you
first begin to notice I am?"

"Oh, 'way last year some time, I expect." Antoinette was tired of
talking about Filmer; she sat with her hands clasped round her knees,
and her eyes were dreamy. "Filmer, do you know what I'd like to be like?
You know that song Martin Mack sang in 'Sweets to the Sweeties'? I'd
like to be like that." She crooned softly:

    "_You fulfil all the dreams that I admire,_
    _You're as pure as ice but a ball of fire!_"

"I'd like to be like that, too," Filmer said, and, not an hour agone,
would have made a primitive attempt to slay anybody who accused him of
talking like this. "I guess maybe we both are. Yes, sir; pure as ice but
a ball of fire."

"It's my ambition," Antoinette said. "Whenever anybody commences talking
about me I wish they'd say, f'r instance, 'Oh, you mean Antoinette Fry?
She's pure as ice but a ball of fire.'"

"I will," Filmer promised. "I'll say it whenever I get a chance, because
sincerely it's the way you are, Antoinette. Antoinette, last year when
you first began to notice I'm--well, you know what you said--was it some
time particular, like maybe when I was only just walking past your
house, or you saw me doing something or heard me saying something to
somebody, or when?"

"Well, one of those times maybe," she answered absently, still thinking
of her ambition.

Filmer felt that he'd better not eat any more tablets; but he had a
longing to do something magnificent. He desired to be splendid before
her, wished to show her that he was intellectual and also to do
startling things that would prove he was even more different than she
realized.

"Antoinette," he said. "Do you like Rembrandt?"

"Who?"

"Rembrandt. He's good. He's my favorite artist." After that, Filmer
pulled the forked sling from his hip-pocket and looked about him for a
missile. "I used to have fun with these things when I was little," he
said. "I used to go around plugging cars with acorns or maybe buck-shot
when they went by. Makes people sore; they look back and yell. If I
could find a little rock or----"

"You better not, Filmer. Here; try it with one of these if you want to."
Antoinette handed him one of the remaining Eucalina tablets. "That'd be
just as much fun and won't hurt anything."

"Righto!" Filmer placed the tablet in the bit of leather; and he and
Antoinette stood up, looking over the hedge. Then, drawing back the
rubber bands of the sling, he aimed at the driver of a passing delivery
truck, which was making the neighborhood noisy by backfiring. The tablet
insipidly went far of the mark.

Other noises in addition to the backfiring broke the quiet of the
afternoon. In the distance, but coming nearer, a motorcycle made uproar,
and two boys, turning the next corner, began a bellowing: "Yay,
Antoinette Fry! What's detaining you, Antoinette? How long you expect us
to wait? All year?"

"It's Slops and Charl," Antoinette said. "I guess the movie's over. You
better not shoot your sling any more, Filmer; there's a motorcycle cop
coming down the street."

"What _I_ care?"

Filmer, though slightly dizzy, he knew not why, had just seen something
that inspired him. A familiar shape, an automobile lately restored to
efficiency, was approaching. In the front seat his sister sat looking
entrancedly at the spectacled neat youth beside her; after hours of
driving, that day, Goody had tired, and now Norman Peel was at the
wheel.

"Quick!" Filmer said, as the well-known car came near; and he seized
from Antoinette another Eucalina tablet. With means so insignificant he
expected small result, yet felt that he was well justified in doing
whatever he could to annoy Goody and her new attendant. Something like
loyalty sparked within Filmer; it seemed right to try to punish them at
least a little for taking that car and making his father go all the way
downtown on foot and in a bus on a hot day. "Watch me, Antoinette!"

He drew the bands of rubber to their utmost practical tension and aimed
carefully. The car, being upon his side of the street and not far from
the curb, offered him a fair mark; neither Goody nor the absorbed Norman
Peel saw him. The little missile curved but slightly in the air, sped
through the open front window of the sedan and ended its flight
stingingly against the side of Norman's nose. The coincidence of a
simultaneous backfire from the delivery truck caused to flash through
the young man's mind for one startling instant a suspicion that he'd
been accidentally shot. Brief as the thought was, it moved him to place
a hand to his nose just at a moment when that hand was needed upon the
wheel of the car he was supposedly guiding. The sedan swerved toward the
opposite curbstone, and, after detaching one of its own mudguards as
well as crumpling another belonging to a bright new coup coming from
the opposite direction, stopped surprisedly.




CHAPTER VIII


The other car, unintentionally facing about, also stopped; and its
occupants, three robust elderly women, descended vociferating. The
policeman on the motorcycle arrived; the elderly women made a mere
confusion of clamors round him; but their gestures plainly appealed for
justice. Filmer saw all this in peculiar distortion, as through flawed
glass; and, dizzier, he sank down behind the hedge--a movement
originating less in conscious discretion than in illness. Antoinette,
anxious not to be seen in his company, ran out to join Charl, Slops and
other pleased sidewalk spectators.

Filmer thought best to stretch himself flat upon the grass at the foot
of the hedge, and at once his sensations were such that he took but an
academic interest in everything that was going on outside of him.
Vaguely he was aware of high altercations; they seemed remote, as did
the sound of Goody's voice rapidly verbose with indignation. People
seemed to be squabbling somewhere; but he regarded this with
indifference. He was pretty sure that something or other he'd eaten
hadn't agreed with him.

At the moment of the accident he'd been dizzily horrified, not by its
possible effects upon life, limb and property, but by an intuition that
later some busybody'd be almost certain to hold him responsible. Now,
lying upon sod that seemed to swing to and fro, he was callous upon the
point, didn't care whether he'd have to go to jail or not. From head to
foot he consisted of commotions, and, as a needless ambulance summoned
by an excited neighbor came sirening up the street, Filmer had the
impression that a cat was miaowing inside his head, trying to get out.
Time passed, and he felt that he was passing, too. At intervals he said
"Uf!" faintly; then at last shoes and the lower parts of trousered legs
whirled round his face, and Antoinette's blue slippers appeared,
swimming streakily among watery green grass blades close to his eyes. He
heard her voice like a thin little fife distantly piping.

"Run! Run for his mother! _Run!_"

More time passed. A dentist seemed to be present, prying among his teeth
with horrid metal instruments; then a strangling liquid was poured into
his mouth; his middle became an insupportable tumult. Later he felt
himself lifted, though he preferred otherwise and tried to cling to the
grass.

Thousands of people seemed to be milling about him, bearing him along
horizontally in the midst of a loudly talkative procession. He was
mistaken about this, of course: the people carrying him were only Gentry
Poindexter, old Dr. Fitch, Charlsworth Beck and Slops; and the others,
who were doing the rest of the talking, were Cousin Olita, Filmer's
mother, Antoinette, Goody, Norman Peel and a slim trail of spectators. A
few of these chance onlookers accompanied the cortege through the
Littles' gateway and would have continued with it doubtless into the
house and all the way up to Filmer's bedroom if Gentry Poindexter hadn't
addressed them harshly from the portico.

The telephone, ringing in the rear of the hall, went unanswered; but
insisted again and again and again upon being noticed. Finally Gentry,
on the way upstairs with fresh towels, called down to Almatina,
instructing her to tell it to stop making all that noise. "Been
dinglety-dinglin' seem like hour," he added. "Ask it: 'You go' keep on
till tomorrow, no matter who sick?' You slap it off the hook, Almatina."

Almatina didn't slap it off the hook. She listened to it inscrutably,
murmured noncommittal responses; and then, leaving the connection in
force, made her appearance before an animated group in the living-room.
Those still doing most of the talking were Goody, Antoinette Fry, Norman
Peel and Cousin Olita. Mrs. Little fanned herself noisily with the
evening newspaper, and Filmer's friends, Charlsworth Beck and Slops,
spoke seriously together.

"It's Mr. Little, ma'am," Almatina said, and easily produced a silence.
"He call up say he occupy with a bureau. Say a bureau pokin' in his
business---- Yes'm that whut he say. I can't help it, say a bureau--and
say go' stay downtown so don't wait dinner for him, he ain't got time to
eat. Yes'm, and ask me why when he so busy he had to ring 'phone bell
all this long time. I jus' reply Gentry jumpin' up and downstairs,
couldn't come, been a little trouble here. He ask me whut. I say rilly
couldn't tell him, jes' everybody runnin' in and out. He say you please
come to 'phone quick, ma'am."

Goody, tense, turned to Mrs. Little. "It'll be better to get it over,
Mother. Above all, you'll absolutely have to ask him if he had collision
insurance on this car, too, and----"

"Oh, dear! Oh, my! I couldn't! And think, Goody, I'd have to tell him
about Filmer first. Oh, no, I can't!"

With outstretched hands Goody swung to plead with Cousin Olita. "Then it
has to be you, Cousin Olita. It wouldn't do at all for Norman to try and
you know what'd happen if _I_----"

"Why, certainly, I will," sunny Cousin Olita said, nodded her
semi-golden curls amiably and like a little man went to perform the duty
assigned her.

"Don't be frightened, Cousin Ripley," she said into the telephone; and,
after being interrupted for some moments, continued the conversation as
well as she could in spite of other interruptions progressively
forceful. "Everything's really all right, Cousin Ripley, and Dr. Fitch
says he's sure Filmer's going to get well... It seems he swallowed a
box of tablets... Yes, and there was an ambulance; but we didn't use
it... No, no, no, it wasn't the same one with the intern that came
the other time, Cousin Ripley... Yes, Filmer's been quite sick; but
there was a young man, a clerk from Healy's drug store, happened to be
going by and stopped to look on and he said they'd been selling him
these tablets because they thought they were for the family; but
Antoinette and the boys got scared by the way the ipecac Dr. Fitch
gave him acted on him and they tell us he took 'em for his breath for
smoking... Yes, cigarettes, and I guess he's certainly lost that
automobile you were going to give him when he's twenty-one; but the
clerk and Dr. Fitch say these tablets were entirely harmless--except
that smell they gave him he always said was the soap, you
remember?--unless he practically took 'em all at once... Yes, it seems
that's what he did; but nobody knows why... No, nobody seems to
understand that point yet, and, speaking of the automobile he won't get
when he's twenty-one, Cousin Ripley, it seems Filmer shot Norman Peel
with his slingshot... Yes, he shot him just before he lost
consciousness... Yes--and oh, Cousin Ripley, Goody wants to know if
you've got concussion insurance on that one, too, because... Yes, that's
what she said. Didn't I say collision insurance?... Goody's anxious to
know if... All right, I'll tell them... Just one moment, Cousin Ripley."

Cousin Olita set the instrument down and turned to speak to Mrs. Little
and Goody, who had followed her, hoping to listen only. "Most of the
time he just keeps saying, 'Job jam it, what _is_ all this? What _is_
all this?' He says he's got to keep his head clear on account of the new
bureaus that are after him now. He seems to think I'm only getting him
confused and he wants to talk to Goody first, right now, and then to
you, Cousin Wilma. Goody, I'm afraid you'll have to----"

"I decline." Goody was spirited. "I decline! Why should I when I know
beforehand everything he'd say--and the way he'd say it, too? You know
I'm not a quitter, Mother; but Filmer's your son, not mine, and Cousin
Olita's done her best. It's up to you to try to make Father understand."

Mrs. Little took the telephone and tried. She told her husband all about
it; she told him twice, she told him thrice. In return, he told her that
he'd just been spending a full hour trying to make the United States
government understand why, among other things, he'd paid twenty-four
dollars for some gunnysacking in March, nineteen thirty-five; that he
was now awaiting a detachment of state officials, and that they'd be
going into the intimate details of his business and personal life until
far into the night. He used to believe that his offices were his
offices, he said, just as he used to think his home was _his_ home; but
these former convictions were the dreams of a jobjam dotard, heaven help
him! Of course he was glad, he admitted, that Filmer was expected to
survive; but this time there wasn't any collision insurance as the
policy had run out while the repairs were in progress at Crappio's and
hadn't been renewed because nobody expected ever to see the dobdab car
back again. The telephone added that with two such children a man could
wish the inventor of the gas engine had died before being born; and the
instrumental buzzings most painful of all to Mrs. Little's ear were
caused by the words, "Good-by, jobjam it! Good-_by!_"

                 *        *        *        *        *

...The representatives of the state commission proved to be less
thorough than expected. Ripley Little finished with them--for the time
being--by half past nine that evening, and, twenty minutes later, rode
into his own driveway in a taxicab. His wife and Cousin Olita, reclining
upon long chairs on the lawn, were enjoying the moonlight; but Mrs.
Little rose nervously as he approached them. "Dear, I----" She
hesitated. "I'm afraid you must be almost exhausted, Ripley. We'll get
you something to eat."

"Thank you, I had two sandwiches in my office and they're not digesting.
Have the remains of our last car been pushed into the garage, or has
Crappio sent a wrecking-crew to remove them?"

"But, Ripley dear, you really ought to eat something. Do let us----"

"Thank you; but I'd like to know----"

"It was only the mudguard," Cousin Olita said. "Hardly anything except
the mudguard got much injured, Cousin Ripley. They found it still runs
perfectly."

"It?" he asked. "It? What still runs perfectly?"

"Why, the car of course, Cousin Ripley. Those women in the other one
made themselves as objectionable as they could--you never heard such a
cackling!--but the policeman himself said there wasn't enough damage to
send anybody to the Chair about. He told 'em, himself, you were good for
their bill. I had such a nice talk with Filmer, Cousin Ripley, after the
doctor got the poor child's exertions quieted down better. He said he
was sorry of course; but in a way he thought he was really acting quite
a good deal on your account, Cousin Ripley, because they hadn't any
right to take the car and make you walk in the hot sun to the bus and
then----"

"I'd like," Ripley Little interrupted, "I'd like to get my questions
answered: Where is that car and who found that it still runs?"

Cousin Olita told him. Her inflection was one of surprise as if of
course he ought to have known. "Why, Goody and Norman Peel, Cousin
Ripley."

"What! You mean to sit there and tell me----"

"Now, Ripley dear!" Mrs. Little pleaded anxiously. "Weren't _we_
different from _our_ fathers and mothers, too? You see, modern young
people simply _can't_ sit around home and do nothing. They just don't
know _how_ because this is a different age, you see, and the footboard
hanging down a little didn't really interfere with using it. Goody was
terribly sorry about it; but this time of course it wasn't her fault at
all, and they'd promised to be at the Green Valley Club by nine. Of
course, too, being out with someone you approve of, yourself, like
Norman Peel, she naturally feels---- Now, Ripley, please don't get
excited and----"

"Excited?" Little began. "You stand there and tell me not to get excited
when----"

He was interrupted. On the other side of the fence, not far from them, a
young girl and four boys came scuffling along the sidewalk, chattering,
pushing one another and whooping a little, in the usual manner of their
kind returning from evening movies. As they passed before the Littles'
lawn they found the moonlight sweet upon them and broke into song. The
five voices, all insupportably loud and four of them changing, didn't
harmonize very well, didn't even mingle agreeably; and one of them,
squawkier than the others, startled Ripley Little. He had a grotesque
thought.

"Why--why----" he said. "How queer! If I didn't know that he's in
bed---- Why, that worst voice sounds exactly like----"

"Now, Ripley dear, please, dear!" his wife begged him. "Darling, please
don't get excited! They simply won't stay in bed nowadays, and, after
all, he ate quite a good deal of dinner and he had half a dollar you
gave him, yourself. I tried; but you simply can't keep them home at his
age, not if they're in the least able to get up. Ripley, please----"

She'd have said more; but the young people sang so loudly that she had
to wait for them to pass. Filmer walked close to Antoinette; his strong
wobbly young voice, bawling earnestly almost in her ear, came also into
the ear of his lamentable father:

    "_You were my tootsytoo as we danced in Peru,_
    _You fulfil all the dreams that I admire,_
    _You're as pure as ice but a ball of fire!_"

Mrs. Little, apprehensively observant of her husband's face under the
full moon, put a troubled hand upon his sleeve. "You _must_ try not to
get high blood pressure, Ripley. I've always been afraid a good deal
would happen to worry you when the time came for his adolescence, and
I'm _so_ afraid he's getting it."

"Yes--it's one of the most wonderful things in this wonderful world of
ours," Cousin Olita said fondly; and, after looking at her for a moment,
Ripley Little went indoors.




CHAPTER IX


He tried hard to be reasonable about both of his children--"at least
just this once," as his wife too hurriedly put it, in a talk with him
the next day.

It was easier to be reasonable about Filmer, even though he had
certainly been the cause of the new little accident; Cousin Olita's
account of Filmer's explanation of his loyal motive for shooting Norman
Peel had undoubtedly somewhat touched the father's heart. It was less
easy to be fair to Goody because her manner so jauntily assumed that he
had nothing to be fair to her about. Another of his troubles was that
his mind had become unsettled in regard to Norman Peel.

"But it was you yourself, Ripley, that picked him out as your favorite,"
Mrs. Little urged. "I think at first she had something like a prejudice
against him; but your suggestion gave her the idea of--of investigating
him a little, as it were, and when she found how nice he really
is--well, he really does seem to be the one. You surely like a young man
to believe in himself, and she tells me it's one of the things that
fascinates her about Norman. He's so sure he's going far in the world of
business and----"

"All right, all right!" Little said. "A touch of self-confidence is no
harm. In fact, it may be praiseworthy. But this talk of changing gables
and our fence and----"

Mrs. Little laughed. "Oh, I wouldn't take that seriously. You know how
young people chatter together, and isn't it rather a good sign, his
mind's being bent on how almost everything could be improved a little,
maybe? Goody tells me she's sure now you were right about him, Ripley,
and that's nice, too; it'd be too bad if you think you have to admit
making such an important mistake. I mean----"

"I haven't said I've got any real prejudice against him, have I?" Little
asked testily, and then was meditative. "Well, we'll see. I'd certainly
be glad to find one glimmer of hope in contrast to this hullabaloo
coterie she's had about her, wouldn't I? I don't want to be hasty;
perhaps if we see a little more of him----"

"Yes, that's it," Mrs. Little said cheerfully. "That's just it, Ripley."

Little agreed that seeing more of Norman Peel might be it, and a morning
or two later, in the bus--for Crappio was still restoring the detached
mudguard--he bent a sidelong observation upon the young man who sat
across the aisle from him. The furtive study contained no disapproval.
Young Norman Peel, quiet-looking, sober in dress, was diligent even in
the bus; for, through his earnest spectacles, he studied figures in a
small memorandum book and with a trimly sharpened pencil made thoughtful
annotations upon the margins of the pages. For a time he wasn't aware of
his neighbor across the aisle; then, glancing up and happening to catch
Little's eye, he nodded gravely, and again devoted himself to his
figuring.

Goody's father rose and, with a genial air, seated himself beside
Norman. "Always work in the bus, do you?" he asked. "That's the way to
get ahead, is it?"

Norman smiled and put the memorandum book in his pocket. "No, not
always, Mr. Little; only when it seems useful. Our people are rather
pushed this week, you know. I understand that Little and McGorney are,
too, especially with the increase in your South American trade. I hear
your customs agent cleared a heavy shipment for you yesterday; I hope
you see your way to a profit on it in spite of taxes, Mr. Little."

Little's largely restored approval increased. "Profit?" he said
quizzically. "Well, how would you handle it, yourself, to insure a
profit--in spite of taxes?"

Norman looked gratified, and immediately sketched a plan that surprised
Little with its insight. They briskly talked business the rest of the
way downtown; then they left the bus together and, still talking, walked
side by side to the tall building in which Little and McGorney occupied
one whole floor and Norman's employers another. In the lobby, before an
elevator arrived, Little followed an impulse.

"I like your ideas," he said. "You seem pretty sound. Some time we might
take up these South American questions together again. I'd like to hear
what you----"

"Any time. Any time." Norman extended his hand, and Little shook it.
"Any time, Mr. Little. Any time you say."

"Very well. I'll let you know, Norman."

Little was brightened. He didn't think of Goody as marriageable
precisely; but the prospect of having this serious, more adult young man
about the house--at times--instead of the usual rioters, was soothing.
"We might look him over a bit together," he suggested to his wife. "You
might let Goody know I have no objection if she cares to ask him for
dinner some evening. He's apparently the kind of young man I'd be glad
to see in this house. I've seldom met anybody of his age with as sound
ideas as he seems to have. Of course he's only got a sort of clerkship
so far; but I wish that some of the young fellows in my own employ had
his business brains. I don't doubt that he knows, himself, he's smart;
but I wouldn't mind some of _them_ knowing it--if they were. Yes, tell
Goody she can ask him any evening she pleases."

Mrs. Little told Goody. The affectionate woman, indeed, was so pleased
by her husband's at last finding one friend of Goody's who didn't upset
his nervous system that she not only told her daughter all that Little
had said of Norman but a bit more. In permitting some slight genial
exaggerations to escape her lips, Mrs. Little hoped that she was
bringing her husband and her daughter together, especially as Goody
listened with an evident thoughtful pleasure; but Filmer did his best,
or worst, to spoil this encouraging effect. He walked into his mother's
bedroom where the private conversation was taking place, and made a loud
complaint.

"Norman Peel! Norman Peel! Norman Peel!" he said. "Trying to do a little
rainy-day reading in my own room and I can't hear anything but
gibble-gabble this, gibble-gabble that. Norman Peel, Norman Peel, Norman
Peel! What new atrocity has Norman Peel done now? What's it all about?"

"Never mind, Filmer." His mother tried to wave him away. "Just run back
to your reading and----"

"Me?" he said. "Run? What makes you think it's that gripping? Look, if
the guy knows his own interests as well as I do he'll remain far distant
out of this residence when Father's around. Do you remember the
expression on his face the day he called Norman Peel a Walking Brain?
Whoo! I wouldn't like to have him speak of _me_ and look like that."

"You wouldn't?" Goody asked quietly, and added, "How singular, because
that very expression is usually exactly the one he----"

"It is not! I and Father get along----"

"Yes, just like that." Goody held up two fingers close together. "Just
perfect, your mutual relations." She turned to her mother. "Isn't
childhood marvelous? It disgraces itself utterly with drug store
smell-pills and slingshots and policemen and's all abased and has to
confess and promise never to smoke again, and you'd think it couldn't
ever lift its head, and then presto! it hasn't the faintest realization
that anything at all has happened to it and comes hopping and grinning,
trying to poke its little nose into adult affairs and----"

"You better listen!" Filmer was furious. "What's become of Ham Ellers?"

"What? Why, you little----"

"Children, children," the mother murmured.

"Children Goody if you want to," Filmer cried, "but don't children me!
Ham Ellers was anyhow something like a regular guy. So what did he do to
get the bird?"

"The bird, Filmer?" Mrs. Little didn't understand.

"The bird, the can, the gate, the brush-off," Filmer explained. "Why,
Ham Ellers may be loutish but he's fully nineteen years old and he's had
more experience of life than----"

Goody laughed suddenly. "If you expect to stooge up to Father by a smear
campaign against Norman--Mister Peel to you, Filmer--you'll be sadly,
sadly mistaken. Tell him, Mother."

"Your father thinks very highly of Mr. Peel, Filmer," Mrs. Little said.
"He admires his intelligence and business ability and good manners and
likes him so much that he wants to know him better and we're asking him
for dinner here very soon."

"What? You mean Father consents to----"

"Consents? No, he suggested it," Goody said, and laughed again at
Filmer, who found no retort ready to hand. In a confused state of mind
he returned to his rainy-day reading--now a borrowed Heptameron, as he'd
finished Bokakio.

The invitation that so astonished Goody's brother was delivered by her
to Norman Peel vocally. The enthusiastic girl quoted in her sweet and
eager voice all that her mother had said Ripley Little had said of
Norman; and then, like her mother, she went even a little further. Her
account of her father's expressed opinion of Norman strongly affected
the young man--in fact, gave him a great liking for Ripley Little;
almost all of us are susceptible to praise freely translated from the
original words of an admirer. When Norman arrived for dinner on the
appointed evening he was just then almost as interested in Ripley Little
himself as in Ripley Little's daughter; though to a spectator this would
have been hard to understand. Goody really was beautiful, even at
eighteen.

That is, she had her looks and something more--an unmistakable air of
intelligence and also the proud quick gleam of eye that means a
readiness to fight lightheartedly at the drop of a hat. She wasn't hard;
she was straight and springy and held her chin up, and yet there were
about her gentle hints that she could be the kindest girl in the world
if she ever decided so to be. In spite of all this, and the fact that
she was at her utmost loveliness in a beige dinner dress, Norman Peel
gave her only a hurried nod when he came into the living-room looking
even more earnest and responsible than usual. He spoke to her mother and
Cousin Olita with polite, brief formality, omitted the dressed-up
reticent Filmer, and immediately turned to the host, who stood by the
mantelpiece.

"Bradford, Holcomb and Todd," Norman said, "have been appointed sole
agents for the Budstill interests, Mr. Little. We got that in our place
just before we closed. Little and McGorney will be affected, no doubt,
and, as for us, I think----"

Gentry Poindexter appeared in the doorway. "Dinner serve'."

"Well," Norman Peel said, "we can take that up at the table possibly."
Mrs. Little, Goody, Cousin Olita and Filmer moved toward the door; the
two gentlemen followed, side by side. "The selection of Bradford,
Holcomb and Todd," Norman continued, "will naturally affect Little and
McGorney more than it does us of the Corcoran setup, Mr. Little. I think
I can show you why and I'll be glad to go over the figures with you in
some detail; but first I'd like to give you a more comprehensive answer
to the question you asked me the other morning in the bus than I was
able to do at the moment. I hope it won't bore the ladies too much
if----"

"Not at all!" Cousin Olita, over her shoulder, took it upon herself to
reassure him. "In these days when everything seems to be about war with
all its horrors I think it's _so_ nice to hear people talking about
almost anything else. You go right ahead, Mr. Peel."

"Well, then," Norman began, "the question was one of possible profits on
that South American----"

They reached the table. "Let's sit down," Little said. "Mr. McGorney of
my firm has handled that matter pretty satisfactorily and it's already
past history so----"

"No doubt, no doubt," Norman interrupted, as he sat. "I think, though,
that it could have been just a shade improved, judging by what I've
heard. I think you could have cleared just about five point thirty-seven
instead of four point ninety-eight, and I'd like to give you my figures
while they're in my head. If you don't mind, Mr. Little, I'll begin at
the beginning and give you my improved outline." Neglecting his soup and
keeping a bright gaze upon his host, Norman gave the outline.

For an outline it was exhaustive, and Norman was so absorbed in it that
Gentry Poindexter had to be tactfully patient about changing the plates
for the courses of the dinner. Elaborating step after step, the young
outliner's face glowed, and, emphasizing his points with an enthusiastic
forefinger, he kept his eyes fixed almost entirely upon the head of the
house, whom he seemed confident of pleasing. Ripley Little, who'd been
all over the South American transaction many times with his partner,
made responses that tended to become perfunctory; and if it hadn't been
for Cousin Olita's now and then saying, "Of course I don't understand a
word; but at your age I think it sounds just wonderful, Mr. Peel!" the
dinner table conversation might have been thought pretty dry.

Goody, obtrusively demure, said almost nothing at all; her mother
murmured aside to Filmer now and then, about his eating, which made him
look dogged--the only effect--and Norman Peel talked on. When the party
rose from the table Cousin Olita and Filmer slipped away to a movie,
Cousin Olita's treat or Filmer wouldn't have gone; and the other four
returned to the living-room for coffee. Still talking, Norman took a
chair close by his host when the tray was brought. Goody maneuvered her
mother to the other side of the room, beyond the piano, and left the two
gentlemen isolated. Norman talked and talked. He seemed to think he'd
been called in for a business conference.




CHAPTER X


Ripley Little had begun to be worse than bored; annoyance, indeed, was
stoking something like actual heat in his breast. He was having a new
experience, one that some people might have thought flattering; but
Ripley Little wasn't feeling flattered: he didn't intend to listen to
anybody of Norman's age a whole evening.

True, he'd slightly cultivated the acquaintance; but not at all, as he
now (erroneously) believed, on his own account. It was exclusively to do
Goody good (he thought) that he'd imported Norman as a sample of
something rather better than what she picked up around anywhere and
brought into the house. Ripley Little looked heavily at Goody's
delightful profile as it came into view when she leaned forward under a
lamp where she sat with her mother beyond the piano. Norman Peel must be
dobdab peculiar, Little thought, and the whole idea of having him to
dinner began to look like a jobjam blunder on somebody's part, maybe his
and Mrs. Little's.

"I hope I've covered this point to your satisfaction, Mr. Little,"
Norman was saying. "I hope it gives you an idea of my grasp of the
situation, though I won't pretend that I haven't some reason to believe
you'd already formed an estimate of what my grasp--I suppose we might
call it that--amounts to. The other day my chief, R.B. himself,
mentioned your again inquiring about me, and there've been other--other
sources, so I'm not going to be mock-modest enough to affect not to know
of the favorable interest you've----"

"'Interest'?" The interruption came from Goody, whose head was now
invisible to the two gentlemen as, leaning back, she allowed the piano
to intervene. "You _are_ being mock-modest, though, Norman," her sweet
voice said chidingly. "You understand perfectly that the word 'interest'
doesn't tell the half! When a person knows that some other person's
really crazy about him, why, honestly now, _isn't_ it mock-modesty to
call it nothing but 'interest'? Why, only this morning Mother said
Father was talking about you again and told her he thought you----"

"Well--well now----" her father interrupted, and laughed uncomfortably.
"We needn't go into all that. Never mind, Goody!"

"No?" The sweet voice seemed to wonder indulgently. "Men are always so
funny about admitting it. I mean why on earth should they always be so
embarrassed when they take these fancies to each other? Women love to
tell each other right out, over and over, so why shouldn't men, when
they feel that way? Norman, you wouldn't think you'd ever have to be
mock-modest with Father again about yourself if you'd only heard him
simply raving to Mother about how you----"

"Never mind!" Little, deeply flushed, again tried to cut her off. He
felt that Goody was making him look job jammed silly. "Never mind!"

"Now don't _you_ be mock-modest, too, Father," the unseen girl persisted
gently. "Norman likes you and he knows perfectly well you've had your
eye on him for a good while. Don't you, Norman? Hasn't he told you _why_
yet, Norman?"

"Well, not in so many words," Norman admitted, laughed deprecatorily and
beamed upon his reddened host. "Of course, Mr. Little, I know you're a
man who never does anything without a purpose and----"

"Of course he doesn't," Goody said. "Didn't I tell you that you're the
first friend of mine he's ever asked to have asked here? That means a
good deal, doesn't it--and you surely know what, don't you, Norman?"

"I might say I suspected it," the young man confessed, smiling; and
then, though plainly exhilarated, he faced Goody's father with gravity.
"Before we go any further, though, Mr. Little, I conscientiously ought
to point out that Corcoran and Company count pretty strongly on my
staying with them. A firm doesn't raise anybody three times during a
depression unless it wants him." Leaning forward, he spoke with a
colleague's engaging frankness, "Mr. Little, you know that and I know
that. It's got to be given its proper weight, hasn't it?"

"Weight?" Little set down the remains of an ill-enjoyed cigar. "What
weight?"

"Mr. Little, let's come into the open," Norman said. "I'm ready to put
all my cards on the table if you are. On the one hand, Corcoran and
Company intend to make R.B.'s nephew a member of the firm before they do
me; but, on the other hand, I definitely owe it to myself to be sure of
a clearly outlined advance if I make a change. That's frank, isn't it?
Then let's be just as frank about Little and McGorney. The truth is, Mr.
Little, the younger element downtown definitely feels there's some dead
wood in your organization."

"Dead wood?" Flushing more deeply, Little stared. "In Little and
McGorney? You say the younger element----"

"Well, frankly, yes," Norman said. "Naturally, as your daughter tells
me, you wish to remedy that and I've been aware that your interest in
bringing me here this evening might lead to some sort of proposition.
Well, I've been giving definite thought to the idea; but, Mr. Little, in
fairness to both of us, we oughtn't to take any further steps without a
basic understanding that I couldn't consider it without first making
sure I'd have no dead wood over me. It's pretty clear that what your
firm needs, Mr. Little, is young blood--it needs youth because this is
Youth's day--but if the dead wood in your organization's to be retained,
why, in justice to myself I don't see how I----"

"What?" Little said. He rose. His collar had tightened round his
expanded neck and his eyes seemed about to become protuberant. "You're
trying to tell me that you----"

"Of _course_ he is, Father!" Goody jumped up dramatically. "And don't
you see how _right_ Norman is, too, Father?"

"Is he? I don't get him. Right about what?"

"Why, about its being Youth's day!" Goody cried. "Of _course_ your firm
ought to have some of it; but at the same time, as Norman says, if dead
wood, maybe more than fifty years old, would be put over him in your
setup he doesn't wish to mislead you into thinking he'd care to come in.
In other words, Father, if you keep the dead wood you'll have to include
Norman out. That's the A B C of it, isn't it, Norman?"

"Well, partly," Norman said. "I wouldn't like to have your father think
I don't appreciate his----"

"More mock-modesty!" Goody exclaimed. "You've both got so much of it,
you two poor men, that you'll never get this thing straightened out if
somebody doesn't help you." She danced round the piano to Norman and
affectionately put her arm within his. "Norman, I never was prouder of
you! You're even grander in your business life than Father's been
telling us. What Norman's been trying to make you understand, Father,
it's that because he intuitively knows you're going to keep all that
dead wood in your business he'd rather wait for the junior partnership
in Corcoran and Company than take anything like that with you right now,
in spite of how much you like each other. The simple fact is Norman
means he declines. In spite of personal reasons, Norman means he'd
rather----"

"Sit down!" her father said. "You sit down!"

"What? Why should I?" she asked. "Father, you're only telling me to
because you can't think of anything else to say."

Mrs. Little, half risen from her chair to look over the top of the piano
at her husband, thought Goody was mistaken about his not being able to
think of anything else to say, and hastily rose the rest of the way.
"Wouldn't you and Norman like to sing something, Goody?" she asked. "I
could play that accompaniment I was trying with you yesterday if you
think I'd manage it well enough. Ripley, I'm sure you'd love to
hear----"

"Excuse me," Ripley Little said. "I'll ask to be excused for the rest of
the evening."

He strode across the room, and, having done some noisy sliding upon the
polished floor of the hall, ascended the stairway, talking indistinctly
to himself.

Mrs. Little remained for a time with the two young people, though they
decided not to sing the duet; but her gaze was often worriedly upon the
ceiling. More and more it seemed to become evident that her husband had
gone upstairs for the purpose of moving heavy furniture.

...When she finally followed and with timidity entered his room, she
easily comprehended the cause of a recent crash: the topmost large
drawer of his bureau lay upon the floor, displaying an intricate
disorder of laundered garments. He rose from ploughing explorations
among them, and his expression alarmed her more than commonly.

"Fire Almatina!" he said. "She hides my nightshirts from me. She hates
me because I won't be a fashion plate in pajamas like Gentry, so she
hides 'em. She hides 'em in a new place every Thursday. I ask you to
fire Almatina tomorrow!"

"Oh, Ripley! Now, Ripley, please."

"Answer me this," he said. "Would anybody but a boor go out to dine
among ladies and talk nothing but business, business, business? Don't
you suppose that when a man gets home in the evening he'd like to have a
little change and forget the office for a few hours? What's worse, I'd
like to know _where_ he got the impression that he'd been brought here
to be offered a position in the firm of Little and McGorney?"

"Well, you know, Ripley dear, you _did_ say----"

"Did I say I craved to adopt a jabjammed peacock just out of the egg a
man can't speak one kind word to on somebody else's account but he
thinks you need his advice about dead wood and want him in your
_firm?_--merely as a junior partner, that's all!"

"Now, Ripley, please. It isn't altogether his fault. I'm afraid Goody
may have rather put some of it into his head."

"Into his what?"

"But _you_ said he has a splendid one, Ripley, and Goody thinks so,
too."

"She does not! She's been making a monkey out of both of us."

"No, no, indeed," Mrs. Little said in a hurried, protestive voice, "not
out of _him_, Ripley. She's never had anybody before with such an
opinion of himself. She knew he liked himself; but she didn't dream how
much, and they think being yourself is great nowadays. After you came
upstairs she was really charming with him, making him feel that the
excited way you left was all right because you were so disappointed
about his not----" Mrs. Little interrupted herself as her husband made
an impetuous movement toward the door. "No, you needn't go downstairs
again; they've gone off to some kind of party she'd heard about
somewhere, Ripley; they always do, you know."

"Listen to me," Ripley Little said. "I thought we were through with
those hoodlums of hers; but get 'em back. Get 'em back--even Ham Ellers.
Get 'em back tomorrow!"

"Back?" Mrs. Little was surprised. "Well--I don't think they've been
away, exactly; but of course she'll love having them at the house again.
I--I'm afraid, dear, from now on you'll have to get used to Norman's
being here a great deal, too."

"'Too'?" Little said. His eyes, and, indeed, his whole face, seemed to
be enlarging. "Too? _Too?_"

"But, Ripley, we'll _have_ to be nice to him, you see, or Goody'll claim
you----" Mrs. Little stopped speaking, and, with a plaintive outcry,
hurried from the room. Her husband had begun to use expressions she'd
never before heard from him in all their life together.

"Dob the dob jam!" he said. "Job dab the bastinadoed soapsuds of the
bishops to the dab dobbed jumping Hellespont! Job jab the jam----"

"Is something or other the matter, Father?" Filmer, returned from the
movies and on his way to bed, stood genially in the doorway, which his
mother, in her haste, hadn't closed. He was disposed to become
conversational. "Well, it seems this Norman Peel turns out to be a
pretty fine fellow, after all. I could tell from the way he handled
himself and paid his attentions to you instead of Goody at dinner----"

The door was closed in Filmer's very face. Ripley Little, on the other
side of it, resumed in his own way the struggle to relieve his feelings.




CHAPTER XI


Filmer felt almost hurt. Too often, he thought, when he wished to be
man-to-man with his father, the extended hand appeared unwelcome and he
wasn't taken into the confidential relations to which a son of his age
should be entitled. Wasn't he almost fifteen? Filmer didn't realize that
he was living through what in many particulars is the toughest of all
the ages.

To the minds of people ten years old the age of almost fifteen, though
but remotely discernible on the path of life stretching into dimnesses
ahead, promises a kind of splendor. The boy of ten says, "I'll be almost
a man by then!" On the other hand, advanced youth, conscious of having
been richly perfected, looks back upon this period with a belittling
amusement: "I was the fuzziest-headed little fool you ever saw when I
was about fifteen!"

Filmer hadn't learned that all ages are but way stations, and he'd
expected more from almost fifteen than he thought he received. No longer
even partly a child, he believed, he was nevertheless frequently treated
entirely as one. He was inappreciative of what he had to balance these
setbacks--the early summer with all its ephemerally tender greeneries,
amethyst twilights, long and warm, and moonrise zephyrs and impromptu
showers to bring freshened smells to a young nose. Yes, Filmer Little
had summer and sunshine and life and love. For Filmer was now in love
(whenever he happened to think of her) with Antoinette Fry. This
condition redoubled itself when he was with her, or remotely saw her, or
even when he heard her yelling in the distance. To be of feather weight
in feet and head, responsible for virtually nothing, to be carefree in
the young summertime, and, unaware that others may receive the same
message, to hear sometimes from precociously coral lips the whisper,
"Filmer, you're different from anybody," what aging Party Chief, what
economic royalist, wouldn't make the trade?--for a specified half hour
or so, of course.

Naturally, however, there were moments when not even Benito Mussolini
would have exchanged places with Filmer. Quite a series of such moments
arrived on the bright unfortunate afternoon of the day following Norman
Peel's declination of an unmade offer of business advancement. Ripley
Little hadn't come home for lunch, and at half past two he called his
wife on the telephone.

"Get this right," he said to her urgently. "Just about the most
important meeting of my life's coming off here in my office at
three-fifteen. This morning I thought it was going to be cooler and left
my blue suit hanging in my clothes closet. It ought to be there now if
Almatina hasn't hidden it, and in the inside pocket of the coat there
are three folded pages of notes I wrote for my own guidance. I was so
nervous this morning when I left the house I forgot to bring 'em and
I've just remembered where they are. I have to have 'em. Got that?"

"Yes, Ripley; of course."

"I've got to have those notes with me when I sit down with these men,"
Little continued. "I've _got_ to. Get that, Wilma?"

"Why, certainly, dear."

"All right," he said. "I'd rather you'd bring 'em to me yourself than
send Gentry. Crappio promised he'd have the car back by noon today. You
get into it and----"

"It didn't come, Ripley. He telephoned it wouldn't be----"

"All right, get a taxi. Go to my clothes closet, look in the pocket of
my blue coat----"

"Oh, dear!" Mrs. Little interrupted. "I absolutely can't, honey. I'm
just starting to Carrie Lane's and she's already furious because I
promised to be there at two to make a fourth at bridge, and Gentry's
gone--it's his afternoon out--and Goody isn't home, either, Ripley.
Filmer is, though. Wouldn't he do?"

"I suppose so. He can take the bus. Get him off right away, will you?"

"Yes, Ripley."

"Wait a minute," Little said. "See here! I don't want him
cloppety-clopping into my offices in dirty shoes and drooping socks and
with his hair all frowzled up and wearing spotted purple slacks and that
jam jersey inside out and backside front. Make him put on a shirt and a
hat and decent clothes. He'll have to hustle some, too. See that he
does, will you?"

"Indeed I will, Ripley!" his wife promised, and, hustling herself,
didn't take time to impress strongly upon their son the need for him
also to move with rapidity. Filmer could hurry when he received that
impulse from himself; but when an altruistic speed was desired of him,
repeated exhortations were advisable. Mrs. Little, talking fast, put too
much stress on the change of clothes. She gave Filmer fifty cents for
his bus fare and general pocket money, handed him the three folded
sheets of scribbled office paper, insisted upon being a witness to at
least the brushing of his hair, and departed flittingly. Filmer, pulling
off the offensive jersey, thus unbrushing his hair, had the impression
that his father primarily wanted him to be all dressed up and
secondarily expected him at the office before very long with these
scratchy-looking papers.

Yawning in prompt boredom, he substituted a "sport shirt" for the
jersey, got into semi-pressed white trousers that were but slightly
soiled here and there, white shoes not too white, a blue jacket, and,
reluctantly--it was dead against his style--set a Sunday straw hat upon
his head. Sauntering, he left the house and was half a block on his way
to the bus before he remembered he'd left behind him the cause of his
excursion. He returned, found the three sheets of paper--one under his
bed--put them in his inner breast-pocket, and, still leisurely, again
strolled forth upon his errand.

Two birdlike voices called to him as he stepped outside the gate, and at
the sound of one of them his breath became fitful, his color high.

"Oh, Filmer! Oh, Filmer Little!"

Antoinette Fry, blonde, high-heeled and lipsticked, came skipping along
the sidewalk toward him, and with her, less graceful but always jovial,
was her plump brunette satellite, Ellie Turner. "Why, Filmer Little!"
Antoinette cried, as they reached him. "Listen, what are you doing
wearing a hat?" Dancing, she put her cranberry-tipped fingers upon his
blue sleeve, danced him onward with her and Ellie. "C'm on, Filmer!
Ellie and I were just coming for you. Charlsworth Beck and Bill and
Slops are over at the Toastie Snackie Inn on Green Street and we're
going to eat Double Deckers. C'm on!"

Filmer had a conscience that just discernibly pointed elsewhere; but he
compromised with it. "Well--I got something to 'tend to; but I guess I
got maybe time enough for a Double Decker," he said, and gave himself up
to the joy of the moment.

At the Toastie Snackie Inn, when Antoinette, Filmer and Ellie Turner
arrived, Bill, Slops, and Charlsworth Beck were already eating Double
Deckers--sandwiches built of toast, sausage, pickles, horseradish, cold
asparagus and sardines. Antoinette, Filmer and Ellie Turner ate Double
Deckers; then all six ate Snackie Sundaes--ice cream plastered over with
sliced banana, crushed peanuts and wet ginger cake. After that they all
felt hearty but had little more money, and Antoinette proposed an
economical entertainment.

"Let's all go out to that new amusement park, Dilly's New Dreamland,"
she said. "It's not going to have its Grand Opening till tomorrow night
and they're still working on it; but they'll let you walk around
everywhere and look at everything, and it's great! We got enough money
left for fares out there and back; but it's five blocks to the right bus
line, so c'm on!" Again her light touch was upon Filmer's sleeve. "C'm
on; let's run, Filmer!"

Qualmishness was present in Filmer: Hadn't his mother murmured something
about three-fifteen--or was it three-thirty? On the other hand, old
people were always prodding you to get to places long before time.
Antoinette's wishes meant much to him, more than anybody else's, in
fact; and here she was beautifully wishing him beside her. "Well, I
guess I can still just about make it," he said, and ran with her.

In the bus Bill, Slops, and Charlsworth Beck, annoyed by Antoinette's
attentions to Filmer, became witty at his expense, somewhat
heavy-handedly. They talked about him in their loud, hoarse, breaking
voices, telling one another about his poisoning himself with Eucalina
tablets and having to be carried home and put to bed. They made him
conspicuous, so that all the passengers heard not only about Eucalina
but much of his hat, a Snackie Sundae spot on his white-flannel knee,
other and older spots, certain inequalities of his features, and, above
all, the shape and extent of his ears. Filmer found all this annoying;
for he more than ever wished to be dignified, in a romantic way, in
Antoinette's presence. This desire enfeebled him and was bad for his
powers of repartee. "Look at your own faces, you guys," he retorted
monotonously. "Listen, look at your own ears and faces, you guys. Can't
you look at your own faces?"

With the party's arrival upon the former pasture land where Dilly's New
Dreamland was being completed, Filmer's three jealous friends gave rein
to crude and boisterous humors; they swept the straw hat from his head,
tried to sail it over structures still being painted, and so got it
wetly varicolored. When he objected, they were rowdyish with him, bumped
him, pushed him from one to another, and finally, making free with
Antoinette, grasped her arms and ran ahead with her.

Antoinette, knowing well what ate them like worms i' the bud, was sweet
to them in turn, one after another, and neglected Filmer. Left behind
with fat joking little Ellie while the others frolicked forward among
bustling workmen, Filmer again felt misgivings. The ride in the bus had
been a long one, with many delaying stops; it was but natural to feel
some apprehension--not that a possible slight tardiness would really
inconvenience anybody. He hoped, though, that his father wouldn't throw
one of those strict fits and speak to him mortifyingly before clerks and
stenographers.

Fortifying himself to bear this, should it befall him, "It's all for
Antoinette's sake," Filmer whispered to himself, as he trudged among
debris with the chattering Ellie, and he added, "For _her_--even more
than that!" His brainwork here is a little confusing because Antoinette
wasn't now either benefiting by him or bothering about him. Probably
what he somehow thought he meant was that to oblige her by tagging along
he'd subsequently bear with stoicism even a louder fuss than his father
might be going to make.

Antoinette and her friends had reached the amusement park at not quite
four o'clock. When she decided that more than an hour's smelling of
fresh paint might make her head ache they flocked into a bus that
carried them toward home. Twenty-five minutes or so later, when the
others hopped out, Filmer, beginning to feel serious about his future,
remained seated. He descended at the downtown terminus, and, being now
penniless, walked seven blocks to the tall building that housed his
father's offices. He moved with reluctant speed, both urged and deterred
by a discouraging appearance of lateness all about him. His shadow was
longer than it should have been, and a great many people seemed to have
finished the work of the day.

Confronted at last with a row of half-glass doors labeled "Little and
McGorney, Inc.", he thoroughly tried them all, found all locked, and,
moved by the instinct of self-preservation, slid the three sheets of
notepaper under one of these doors. That is, he'd been told to change
his clothes, wear a hat and take certain papers to his father's offices.
Well, he'd obeyed. The clothes were changed; the hat, though damaged,
was on his head, and the papers now lay in the offices; nobody could say
he hadn't brought 'em.

All that remained to do was to walk home, about three miles. The June
sunshine began to look autumnal; he might be a little bit late for
dinner and incur criticism on that account. Well, let 'em; he couldn't
help it. Prescience grew stronger, causing him not to push himself:
What's the use of breaking your neck when you're pretty sure the whole
family's going to be dissatisfied with you anyway?

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ripley Little, who'd at last gone home after disordering a bridge party
and having employees telephone to the houses of all acquaintances of
Filmer, known or suspected to be such, proved upon the lad's arrival to
be more dissatisfied, by far, than had been anticipated. In the very
midst of Filmer's oft-interrupted explanations, the father, huskily
uttering sounds remindful of the Old Testament, turned back from the
dining-room door toward which his wife was imploring him, rushed upon
the telephone and ordered a taxicab. He talked disjointedly and almost
unintelligibly about Filmer until it arrived; then shot away in it,
exhorting the driver.

Cousin Olita explained in kind tones to Filmer. "You see, dear, I'm
afraid you won't be his favorite any more; but you must try to be glad
on Goody's account because she's your only sister and it'll be nice for
her if he's all upset for a while with somebody else."

"Look," Filmer said. "Look, did I know _I_ was supposed to get there in
such a hurry? What was I supposed to tear downtown at a hundred miles an
hour _for?_ Why did Father----"

"I'm telling you, dear," Cousin Olita reminded him. "You see, those
notes he'd made were terribly confidential with just himself, and he's
been telling your mother and me, and even Goody, over and over he might
as well be shot as have anybody else in the whole world get the
slightest peek at 'em. Now that you've left them on the floor of his
offices where some of his people might come back after dinner to finish
up work--or maybe _all_ his clerks and stenographers'd read 'em first
thing tomorrow morning--why, he felt he'd have to go and get 'em himself
right away, you see. Dinner's in a bad way already, of course, because
he couldn't quiet himself down enough to eat before you came; but I
suppose it'll be a good deal worse spoiled still by the time he gets
back. I'm afraid that'll make it all the more trying for you, Filmer
dear."

Cousin Olita spoke wisdom: Filmer never spent a more harassed evening,
and became so low in his spirits that he forgot about its being all for
Antoinette Fry's sake. The breakfast table brought no let-up and when
his father, departing, mentioned to Mrs. Little that he'd be home for
lunch, Filmer considered walking to some outlying part of the city to
look for any job that would provide him with the barest food and
lodging.

Lunch was much as expected, and when it was over he went upstairs to his
own room and got out his stamp collection in the subconscious hope that
it would prove to him he'd at least done something in this world. It
didn't. Older than when he'd made it, he couldn't fail to comprehend
that it was one of the poorest messes of stamps ever collected.

He sat by his window, looking into the Watsons' yard next door where a
fat Maltese cat near her time watched with only academic interest a
distant robin hopping about the lawn. Filmer didn't like this cat; in
fact, she was repugnant to him, and a complete dissatisfaction with life
came over him. His mother loved him, but didn't count; Goody, sickening
about her Norman Peel, was objectionable; Cousin Olita, voluptuously
sentimental and far from able-minded, was nothing but a trial; and, as
for Mr. Ripley Little of Little and McGorney Inc., look at the
unjustness of the way he'd been acting--as if Hitler'd be right in the
middle of the United States because three unreadable old sheets of paper
didn't get to the office exactly on time--and then because they were
left there pretty much exactly according to instructions! Filmer'd have
preferred somebody from the Gestapo for a father. Yet this was the
family he had to live with; and, for intimate friends, he had
Charlsworth Beck, Bill and old Slops--and a fine bunch of cheese that
was! Friendship! They acted like it, didn't they? Here he was, just
about fifteen years old and he'd gone through all his life without one
single real friend!




CHAPTER XII


By neat coincidence, there came within the scope of his vision just such
a creature as he'd have wished to call his friend. The wide green front
yard next door, into which he looked slantingly down from his window,
had never been interesting to Filmer, as the Watsons were elderly, over
thirty-five; but there drew up to the curb a closed automobile covered
with dust, and, after a colored chauffeur had opened the door, there
popped out a bareheaded slim youth in a checkerboard black-and-white
jacket, yellowish slacks and black-trimmed white shoes--attire instantly
admired by Filmer as ideal for motor touring. A bulbous middle-aged
woman of twittery voice and fashionable appearance emerged also; the
colored man drew traveling bags from the baggage compartment and
followed her and the youth up the flagstone path to old Mr. and Mrs.
Watson's front door.

Filmer's eye took wistful note of the boy in the checkerboard jacket.
There was something careless, knowing, man-of-the-worldish and
impertinent about him; he had the air of one who only laughs at
consequences and is capable of telling the whole Faculty where to head
in. Here, Filmer thought, was somebody who made old Slops, Bill, and
Charlsworth Beck look like the fried bums they were. A friend like that
would be something in life; friendship could be real with such a one.

Old Mrs. Watson rushed from her house, greeted the visitors effusively
and led them within. The chauffeur followed with the bags, came out
again and drove the car away. Filmer drooped back into his dismalness
and wasn't much cheered by re-reading a treatise on How To Become An
Entertaining Conversationalist, which he'd lately received in exchange
for a money order of small amount.

"Filmer dear?" Cousin Olita's voice called from downstairs. "Oh, Filmer?
If you're up there, do come down, Filmer. I've got something _so_ nice
to tell you, Filmer!"

Filmer came to the top of the front stairway, looked down upon her
gloomily. "Nice? What you mean nice? I know what kind o' nice you
usually want to tell me. Got another photograph of little Uncle Edward
at Saratoga Springs in eighteen seventy-two you want me to look at? Or
do I get to hunt a couple hours for your embroidery needle and maybe
you'll give me a handsome card-case from the five-and-ten next Christmas
if I find it? Listen, I'm reading, so for Sweet Mike's sake what you
hollering about?"

"Mrs. Harpeddle," Cousin Olita replied, beginning to explain. "Mrs.
Harpeddle's on a long motor trip; she's had nervous prostration ever
since her forty-fourth birthday. Mrs. Harpeddle----"

"Who-peddle?" Filmer interrupted harshly. "Listen, I'm reading, so for
Sweet Mike's sake----"

"No, it's her son, Filmer. Mrs. Harpeddle and her young son have just
stopped off on their motor trip for a little visit with dear Mr. and
Mrs. Watson because they're related to them, and I've been over there to
call and said we had a nice young boy here, too, right next door, and
Mrs. Harpeddle thought you might make such a good companion for her
young son while they're here, Filmer; though I expect he's a little bit
older than you are and has _such_ a nice face, besides. He's out in
their yard now, waiting, Filmer, because I told him I knew you'd love
being a younger comrade to him during his visit."

"I would not!" Filmer, though revolted by Cousin Olita's way of putting
things, came downstairs briskly enough. "I am _not_ a 'nice young boy',
thank you, and I have no intentions of going to be anybody's younger
comrade. Accept my regrets and please politely sob yourself to sleep!"

He passed by smiling Cousin Olita, went outdoors and beheld, as he
expected, the wearer of the glorious jacket waiting upon the lawn next
door. Filmer pressed through the line of low shrubberies that separated
the two yards and approached the stranger, who addressed him graciously.
"Hello, hello, hello! A little bird tells me you must be this Filmer
Little the gals all talk about, what? Shake."

Filmer was deferential. "Then I expect you must be this Harpeddle,
aren't you?"

"Harpeddle?" The other boy, who was weedily a head and a half taller
than Filmer, looked down upon him smilingly. "Skip it! Richard Pinney
Harpeddle, alias Dicksy Boy--Dicksy to you. Dicksy Boy's what they call
me back home, and I guess you can find me easy enough if you ever turn
up in that burg and ask anybody, 'Look, do you know Dicksy Boy?' They'd
tell you. Somewhere near fifteen, aren't you, Filmer?"

"No," Filmer said. "I am, practically. What are you, Dicksy?"

"Well, verging on seventeen."

Filmer was solemn. "Listen. Have you got a driver's license?"

"_Have_ I! A driver's license? Don't I look it?"

"Then what you and your mother got a chauffeur for, Dicksy?"

"It's a long story, pardner. What you say we sit down and talk it all
over?" Dicksy Boy placed his hand upon the shoulder of the gratified
Filmer; they walked to old Mr. and Mrs. Watson's verandah steps, and
sat. Formalities were over; they were at the age when intimacy is as
instantaneous as between convivial men at a midnight bar. "Listen,
Filmo," Dicksy Boy said. "I got my driver's license over two months ago,
the very day I was sixteen. I got pinched that same afternoon and the
judge took my license away for two years the day after." Filmer's breast
filled with an almost suffocating hero worship; he murmured "My gosh!"
slowly and whisperingly, and Dicksy, pleased by the tribute, continued,
"Listen, you can ask me all about it if you want to; see what I mean?
Some people I wouldn't answer; some I would. Yes, sir, it all happened
on account of a dame. Were you ever engaged, Filmo?"

"Engaged?" Filmer was indeed staggered. "Me? No, I don't expect I ever
will be, hardly."

Dicksy Boy laughed. "Yes, I used to talk like that, too, when I was your
age or maybe a little younger. Listen, Filmo; I was engaged the first
time when I was just thirteen. Yes, sir, thirteen. That wasn't the girl
they got my license away from me on account of, though. Not that baby.
No, hardly! I've quit writing to this one, too; but I'll tell you about
her, see what I mean?"

He unfolded a narrative of sophisticated love, hard driving, accidents
and court scenes; he repeated elaborate dialogues in which he had borne
the wittier part. "Well, sum it up; sum it up. What's it all amount to?"
he said, serious in concluding these episodes. "I told 'em they could go
eat rhubarb, and Mabel and her old skinny mother and father, too; so
what? Why, I drive a car just the same whenever I feel like it and I
don't when I don't. That's the sum and substance." Then he inquired
where Filmer had his clothes built, and, when Filmer had acquired
"built", advised him to go to Fassett's in New York.

After that Dicksy Boy went on to speak frankly of what is sometimes
called sex. He thought Bokakio and the Heptameron crude stuff, and
Filmer was surprised to learn that the name of a celebrated memoirist
he'd heard Slops mention wasn't pronounced Cazzanobbia. Dicksy then told
Filmer all about the inner life of night spots, where, he said, a girl
of true worth might often be found as well as among people your family
know.

Filmer listened more than admiringly; a spell was upon him. Something
rare and uplifting seemed to be happening to him. Dicksy Boy Harpeddle,
deep in life, well-adventured among glam-gals, practically a young man,
was already his friend--a polished dresser and talker outshining dumb
old Bill, Slops, and Charlsworth Beck as the day outshines the night. An
ambition to appear before Antoinette Fry bringing his friend Dicksy Boy
with him grew strong in Filmer. Together he and Dicksy Boy could show
Antoinette what oafs she cherished in old Slops, Bill, and Charlsworth
Beck. It was about time they learned a little something, and for
Antoinette to remember who was different from them and stop treating him
the way she did yesterday. Thus, when the afternoon shadow of the
Watsons' house had extended itself eastward across the grass all the way
to the street, and Dicksy Boy asked fastidiously what was the hottest
night spot in town, Filmer, rising to go, spoke with a slight
embarrassment.

"Well--well, I tell you what, Dicksy Boy, old kid, I'd like to attend a
night spot myself; but--but I been having a good deal of trouble with
the family lately. It's about the worst I ever been in and they got my
allowance cut off--for the time being. I tell you what let's do,
instead. There's a--there's a girl lives just up the street here that's
got a bunch of heels always hanging around; but, herself, she's--she's
the goods-plus. After dinner let's go over there and----"

"I see!" Dicksy Boy laughed. "Want me to look her over for you,
what-oh?"

"Well--not exactly. I mean these lugs ought to be showed where to head
in. We could kind of slap down the ears of those individuals and rib 'em
and everything, kind of, and----"

"Right _ho!_" Dicksy Boy comprehended with pleasure. "Got you, Filmo;
we'll smear the mugs. You come over here for me soon as you've stoked
the puss. Right after dinner; see what I mean?"

"Right _ho_, Dicksy Boy!" Filmer said. "I'll be over for you soon's I
get through dinner; see what I mean?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

...He was a little delayed for the appointment. A thunder shower
interfered; it began by seeming to explode just over the house during
dinner and it became so outrageous as almost to gain Ripley Little's
full attention. (He still couldn't even accidentally glance at his son
without stopping eating, or anything else, to meditate obviously upon
Filmer.) The elementary uproar continued after the meal, then dwindled;
Filmer went forth, and Mr. and Mrs. Little sat by the front windows of
the living-room and looked out into a cleaned twilight that felt
treacherous.

"Hot and muggy as ever," Little said. "Going to get plenty more of it
before the evening's over." His gaze, roving complainingly, rested upon
two hatless figures passing along the sidewalk, and its discontent
increased. "_Now_ where's he going? Where's he going _now_? Over to that
lipsticked little Fry girl's again, I suppose."

He referred to Filmer, who, with his new friend, was indeed going
whither his father supposed. Filmer, chewing nothing knowingly, swinging
his arms and slouching in his best style, felt dramatic. He was about to
show Antoinette and Bill, Slops and old Charlsworth Beck the kind of guy
he could go with when he really cared to. Limber, lanky, careless and
debonair, Dicksy Boy smoked a cigarette in a pasteboard holder and spoke
of a waitress he knew who was a widow. To Filmer there seemed a dark
grandeur about him.

Middle age is colder. "Who's _that_ he's got with him?" Little asked.
"Who's that insect with the cigarette in its silly face?"

...At Antoinette's the grass was wet, and scattering drops still fell
under the trees; but sounds of youth and attempted music came from
within the house. Filmer and Dicksy Boy found Antoinette, Bill,
Charlsworth Beck and Slops noisily gathered about a piano upon which
Ellie Turner was trying hard to play "Squirt Your Hose On Carrie What's
She Care" with both hands. Filmer made the presentation of Dicksy Boy to
Antoinette and Ellie formal, and to Bill, Slops and Charlsworth as
scornfully negligent as he could. Slops, Bill and Charlsworth, in the
presence of Dicksy Boy's jacket, were quieted down immediately.
Antoinette fluttered her eyelashes consciously, and fat little Ellie
looked eager.

"Heard all about you," Dicksy Boy said jauntily to Antoinette. "Every
single thing, where you buy platinum tonic for your hair, and all. Just
look at that hair. Boy! Been motoring in seventeen states and every
place I went they all said, 'Listen, Dicksy Boy, wait till you meet
Antoinette Fry; just wait till you two get together!' Pepper!"

Antoinette pretended to slap him. "I bet you're a great big liar!"

Filmer was delighted. Dicksy Boy had begun magnificently, a credit to
his proprietor. "I'll tell you how it was, Antoinette; see what I mean?"
Filmer said. "This afternoon I and Dicksy Boy got to talking about going
to a night spot or somewheres tonight; but I told him, 'Let's not.
Listen, Dicksy Boy,' I told him. 'Instead of a night spot, see what I
mean, let's us go----'"

"_Pepper!_" Dicksy Boy cried, neither he nor Antoinette seeming
interested in Filmer's account of things. "_Pepper!_"

Dicksy Boy put both hands upon the fat back of the pleased Ellie, pushed
her from the piano bench, gave her a jolly spank, kicked the bench away,
and, playing jiggishly upon the keys, used his limber legs and large
feet in a semi-stationary dance of clattering agility. Antoinette and
Ellie screamed in rapture; Dicksy Boy increased his activity, shouting,
"Pepper, more pepper! _Hot_ Dicksy Boy! Peppah, more peppah!" Then,
playing with his right hand and still dancing, he used his left arm to
clutch Antoinette to his side. "Dance, gal, dance! Peppah, gal, peppah!
Pepper in the feet, gal. Peppah!"

Filmer drew a breath of apprehension, feared that Antoinette might deem
Dicksy Boy offensive and that she might therefore think coldly of his
sponsor. Antoinette, on the contrary, immediately entered into the
spirit of Dicksy Boy's fun. "Peppah!" she cried. "More peppah!" and,
unresentful of Dicksy Boy's arm, did her best to imitate his drumming
feet.

"Peppah! More peppah!" shouted fat little Ellie Turner, and did
likewise.

Dicksy Boy abandoned the piano, threw his other arm about Ellie, and,
bellowing "Squirt Your Hose On Carrie What's She Care", danced both
girls with him round and round the room. Frequently they interrupted
their so-called singing to shout "Pepper!" or "Peppah!" or "More
peppah!" or "_Hot_ Dicksy Boy!" and whenever this happened all three
were ecstasied with a humor inexplicable to the four spectators.

Standing aside, Filmer tried to laugh as heartily, tried to prove
himself with them in spirit; but things didn't seem to be turning out as
he had thought they would. He was beginning an experience that uncounted
suitors of all ages have undergone since the beginnings of human life
and will probably undergo to the end of it. When did anybody ever do
himself a good turn by bringing a showy friend to dazzle an
impressionable or coquettish loved one? Ay, and what's the discretion of
a lover who displays to her a dashing stranger all temptingly aglitter
with newness?

Filmer's laughter--the kind that claims, "_I_'m in on this, too"--was
feebler every time he felt called upon to produce it.




CHAPTER XIII


Antoinette, flushed and bright-eyed, piercingly sang "Squirt Your Hose
On Carrie What's She Care"; so did Dicksy Boy and fat squealy Ellie
Turner. Whirling, the three interlocked dancers regardlessly slammed
into Filmer, knocked him four feet backward, into the piano. "Peppah!
More peppah!" they cried, and Filmer, swallowing, felt that he really
hadn't known Dicksy Boy through and through until this evening. You
never do know a man until you see him among women; and if Filmer had
thought Dicksy Boy was going to be so unbelievably fresh with Antoinette
and raise all this hullabaloo in Mr. and Mrs. Fry's house as soon as he
got into it he almost wouldn't have brought him along at all.

"Hot Dicksy Boy!" the dancers cried, and dropped sittingly, side by
side, upon a sofa, screaming with self-applausive laughter.

Dicksy Boy, between the two girls, spread his legs, squirmed one foot
behind the feet of Antoinette and the other behind the feet of Ellie,
leaned backward, lifting high all six feet; then, throwing his body
forward, brought himself, Antoinette and Ellie, in the one sweeping and
humorous movement, upright upon the floor. "_Hot_ Dicksy Boy! What do we
do next?" he said.

"_I_ know! _I_ know!" Antoinette danced up and down, pounded Dicksy
Boy's shoulder. "Tonight's the Grand Opening of Dilly's New Dreamland.
We'll all go out there on the bus. We'll----"

"Bus? Listen, woman!" Dicksy Boy said. "What's the use me having a car
that'll do a hundred flat if you ask her? I gave the chauffeur a night
off; but he drove her round the alley and put her in old Cousin Rupie
Watson's garage and I can get her out okey-dokey. Hot Dicksy Boy! C'm on
with me, Antoinette. It's dark now and I'm afraid to go up alleys alone
in the black black night! We'll be back for you others in two shakes.
C'm on, Antoinette. Peppah, gal!"

"_Peppah!_" Antoinette cried. Dicksy Boy seized her hand and they ran
out of the house.

Ellie Turner skipped to the piano and hammered the keys, shouting; then
turned, enraptured, to Filmer. "Isn't he the wunnerflest cutie-coot? My,
is he a hot boy! How long's he going to stay?" She included Bill, Slops
and Charlsworth. "Don't you s'pose if we _all_ got together and said he
just simply _had_ to, we could persuade him to keep on visiting that
nice Mr. and Mrs. Watson maybe a month or even all summer?"

In response Filmer was almost as lackadaisical as were Bill, Slops and
Charlsworth. They didn't wish to appear jealous or anything, but
couldn't brighten up to Ellie's idea, and she turned to hammer the piano
again--did so until an automobile horn insistently disturbed the
darkened quiet of the neighborhood. A phrase already odious to
Charlsworth, Bill, Slops and even Filmer was heard repeatedly from the
street. "_More_ peppah!" echoed fat old Ellie Turner, and ran bouncingly
forth.

Filmer, Bill, Slops and Charlsworth followed her soberly and by the time
they reached the curb she was already on the front seat of the car,
jumping up and down beside Antoinette and Dicksy Boy. The four others,
girlless--for even Ellie would have been a little something--were forced
to pile up behind, churlish with one another about making room.

"I'm crazy about this burg. I'm going to stay here forever!" Dicksy Boy
announced. "Yes, sir," Dicksy Boy said. "My mother'll do anything I tell
her and we'll keep on visiting here 'way into September."

"Grand! Grand! Grand!" Antoinette exclaimed, and Ellie Turner whooped
like a simple idiot.

"Now, babies, I'll show you some driving!" Dicksy Boy said, and within
three blocks proved himself every bit as bad as his word. Filmer, Slops,
Bill, and Charlsworth Beck flopped about on one another, had pains
physical, emotional and mental.

"My gosh, Bill," Charlsworth begged, "lean your back off my face!
Anyways I'd like to see it coming when I get killed. Can't you sit all
over somebody else a while?" Bill obliged by sitting thumpily upon
Filmer, who was now positive that Cousin Olita's loopy neighborly
politeness had worked him into one of the biggest mistakes he'd ever
made.

Dicksy Boy, having reached a main-traveled thoroughfare, ran through a
red light and began to do some spectacular out-and-in snaking among
other cars. Every time he attempted one of these fancy feats, Antoinette
and Ellie squealed hysterically; then servilely echoed the hero's
abominable cry, "More peppah!" It was enough to sicken anybody of
condiments for life.

The spontaneous warm friendships of youth, like those between adults at
the midnight bar, can be chilled abruptly. "I'll tell you something you
won't like," the rocking Filmer said, muffled by a shoulder blade of
Bill's. "The dern doggone fool hasn't even got a license. The judge took
it away from him."

"My gosh!" Bill, Slops and Charlsworth said, virtually in concert and
not with admiration.

Because of a series of coincidences none of which could happen again in
a thousand years, the car reached a twenty-five-cent parking lot
opposite Dilly's New Dreamland's whitely illuminated main entrance
without causing a death, and drove in. The occupants jumped out; Dicksy
Boy took Antoinette and Ellie each by an arm and ran ahead with them.
Filmer, Bill, Slops and Charlsworth ran, too, for they had a reason; and
they were all suggestively at Dicksy Boy's elbow when he paid
seventy-five cents, plus tax, for three admission tickets.

"I'll treat the women," he said, laughing. "Hot Dicksy Boy!" Antoinette
and Ellie skipped through the turnstile, and, with Dicksy Boy, were
immediately lost to sight.

Bill, Slops and Charlsworth Beck naturally had less than twenty cents
between them, after yesterday's orgy at the Toastie Snackie Inn and the
bus rides; and as for Filmer, he'd been a bit lofty with the facts when
he told Dicksy Boy that his allowance was cut off "for the time
being"--Ripley Little didn't believe in allowances, and the past
twenty-four hours hadn't encouraged Filmer to apply. Fair-sized drops of
rain plopped hintingly upon the four boys as they stood looking at the
turnstile and at the long extent of white board fence seven feet high.

"Listen," Slops said determinedly. "I don't stand for this treatment;
not for a minute! We got to crash the gate. We got to back in."

"Back in?" Filmer repeated. "What you mean, back in?"

"Certainly, back in," Slops said. "I don't stand for this treatment."

Opportunity was already awaiting him. Upon the falling of raindrops many
of the more thoughtful people within the glowing enclosure of the fence
decided simultaneously to go home, and, to relieve pressure, a wide
double gateway not far from the main entrance was thrown open. "Me
first," Slops said, and, as if casually, he approached the outcoming
throngs. When he reached them, however, he turned about, so that he
faced in the same direction that they did; and then, swinging his arms
and leaning forward as if, like them, he engaged earnestly in the
process of hurrying away, he brilliantly walked backward. Filmer, at
first incredulous but gradually enlightened, saw Slops thus successfully
enter the exit gate of Dilly's New Dreamland by the simple means of
backing in.

"Now me!" Bill said, and in every detail imitated the performance of
Slops.

Charlsworth Beck, to whom this technique was as new as it was to Filmer,
nevertheless backed in neatly; then Filmer tried. Being the last, he
feared observation and guiltily walked forward as well as backward,
losing so much time thereby that when he reached the gateway the
departing crowd was sparse and his backing and filling became
conspicuous. Large hands grasped his shoulders from behind, a hard knee
was applied to him coarsely and he moved only forward, this time with
speed. Reproached in ugliest terms by a hoarse and whiskied voice, he
heard the gates slammed shut but didn't turn to see who closed them.
Instead, gulping, he went to the parking lot across the road, where
Dicksy Boy had left the car. Here a man soured by old suspicions loudly
refused to admit any person whomsoever without a card proving ownership
of one of the vehicles within; and shelter had to be sought elsewhere.
For Filmer there was none, and the rain now came down as if the lakes of
heaven had capsized.

Filmer stood in it for an everlasting hour, leaning against the tall
fence near the wetly packed main entrance. The boards at his back seemed
to flow; the ground became an ooze of mud about his once whitish shoes,
and finally he said aloud, "Listen! Look _here!_" in the tone of one who
remonstrates against exorbitance. At once, as if these words had
influence among the rolling and stormy heights, the downpour slackened
to a drizzle.

Again the gateway through which his three companions had backed was
thrown open. Once more, crowds came hurrying forth, and at the tail of
the scrambling procession walked three figures not of adult size,
dripping moodily. Filmer sloshed forward to them.

"Listen!" Charlsworth Beck addressed him complainingly. "What you been
doing all this time here? Look, have they come out yet?"

Filmer spoke with feeling. "Listen, you been in there where they _were_,
weren't you? _I_ wasn't, was I? _You_ were, weren't you? You----"

"We _saw_ 'em, didn't we?" Slops retorted. "They went in a place that
says Dancing Twenty-five Cents. We got on some barrels and looked
through a window at 'em dancing."

"Us, the best friends she's ever had!" Bill said. "Us out there in all
that storm, and we could hear 'em yelling 'Pepper!' so loud the whole
crowd in there stopped to watch 'em, and if you want my opinion it's
somebody ought to tell her father and mother she ought to be protected
from going with a great big sap that'll get her talked about from
everybody looking at her he's got her so reckless!"

"Go ahead," the heartsick Filmer begged. "What happened next?"

"A great big punk in a rubber coat came along and chased us off the
barrels," Slops informed him bitterly. "Kept following us and shooing us
with a club. Dilly's New Dreamland management better look out or they
won't get much patronage if _that's_ the treatment they expect to hand
their public!"

The weather, in slowing down to a drizzle, had only been fooling
blackheartedly. Flash and bang-whack came together, down swished water;
and again Filmer, Bill, Slops and Charlsworth were bathed with their
clothes on. "Listen," Bill said. "Look, let's all go and take turns
sitting in his car on the driver's seat, dripping on it and----"

"We can't." Filmer described the suspicious man in charge of the parking
lot. "And would that guy even tell you if the car's still there? All
he'll say is, 'Show me my numbered check or go on away from here!' He's
a nice guy, that guy is!"

"I don't stand for one minute more of this treatment," Slops said. "I
don't know how many miles it is home; but I'm going. Fat chance to thumb
a ride, us this wet; but I'm going."

Charlsworth Beck and Bill were of like mind; and so was Filmer, fully.
The four boys began to trudge morosely down the long and splashing road
toward home. "What you want to keep talking about it for?" Bill asked
spitefully. "If you expect they're still in Dilly's Dreamland whyn't you
go back and wait for 'em, Filmer? He's _your_ friend, isn't he? It was
_you_ brought him over to her house, wasn't it? _You're_ the one
that----"

"Did _I_ know how he was going to turn out? _Did I?_" Filmer defended
himself hotly. "Look, s'pose I did get him over there, just for my old
Cousin Olita's goofy politeness, where am I _now?_ Did I _gain_ anything
by it? Kindly answer me, please. Did _I_ gain anything by it? _Did_ I?"

Silvered at intervals by oncoming headlights and inconsiderately treated
by mud-spurting tires, the four morbid figures plodded soggily on
through the watery dark; and their conversation was, more and more
pungently, all of Dicksy Boy. Thus, insensibly, the four drew together
in spirit. Times were few when, like M. Dumas' musketeers, they were all
for one and one for all; but such an hour was with them now. Filmer felt
that compared to a pepper-yelling fish-faced slob that couldn't keep a
driver's license, Bill, Slops and Charlsworth were pretty nice fellows.
They all felt that way and were indulgent one with another. When Slops
said that what _he_ hated the most--and what her father and mother
certainly ought to be told by somebody--was the way that great big can
of garbage was making her conspictuous, nobody picked on him for his
usual weakness in pronunciation.

Antoinette had to be protected from getting talked about in public
places, all agreed, now that this big circus-dressed foot-pounder was
going to stay all summer. If her parents didn't show sense enough to
look after a girl like that, somebody else would have to get busy.
Filmer made the first suggestion.

"I live right next door to him," he explained. "We got a bay window that
looks down almost in Mr. and Mrs. Watson's side yard, and my mother's
got an old fountain-pen filler with a rubber bulb that'll squirt fifteen
or twenty feet. If he ever goes around their house that side when he's
starting to Antoinette's I'll fill that filler with ink and lean out the
window and----"

"Listen," Bill said. "Look. At Behring's grocery there's some cheese
left over from Germany that prackly keeps customers out of the place.
The way I look at this whole business, if we could rub some of it on his
clothes----"

"His hair'd be better," Slops interrupted. "It'd be hard to do without
his noticing; but it'd be better."

"Then every time all summer he opens his mouth to say anything,"
Charlsworth said, "we all ought to yell 'Swill! Swill! Swill!'"

"Yes, that'll help," Filmer assented. "Then we ought to----"

They continued to devise measures for Antoinette's protection, and the
harder it rained, the more plans they made to save her. They had plenty
of time to elaborate details before at last they came sloshing wearily
into their own dark and soaking neighborhood.




CHAPTER XIV


At his own driveway gates Filmer left the others and walked toward the
house, heavyhearted but thinking what nice fellows Bill and Charlsworth
and Slops were, after all. He walked slowly--because what was the use of
hurrying when he couldn't get any wetter?--and it was in his mind that
he'd find that old fountain-pen filler tonight and charge it with ink
so's to be ready for Dicksy Boy the first thing in the morning. "Oh,
pardon me, Dicksy Boy," he planned to say, prophetically dramatizing the
black squirting. "I didn't notice you were there, because I happened to
get so wet last night the water isn't out of my eyes yet. Let's go over
to Antoinette's; I got some friends of mine waiting around over there to
see you, Hot Dicksy Boy. _They'll_ help you clean off all that ink!"

Thus Filmer gave himself a bitter, slight pleasure; but, ascending the
portico steps, he had a misgiving about his reception indoors--a
prevision not inaccurate he perceived as with squishing shoes he entered
the hall. His father and mother came immediately to the living-room
doorway, and he didn't like the expression worn by either of them,
though his mother's was only lamentant.

"Oh dear me, you're just a living lake, Filmer!" she cried. "Get to bed
as quickly as you can. Rub yourself hard, and I'll come up and bring you
a hot-water bottle to----"

"Hot-water bottle? I won't! Mother, I absolutely----"

"Filmer, please! It'll keep you from catching cold. Child, child, didn't
you know better than to----"

"Know better?" Ripley Little echoed. "Asking _him_ if he doesn't know
better? Filmer, do you realize what hour of the night it is?"

"Sir?"

"I asked you----" Little began; then changed his theme. "What's the use?
He associates himself with a mental defective, a moron who ought to be
kept put away, makes a companion of him on a forbidden excursion, and
then, for reasons no human being could fathom, deserts the party and
chooses to walk home all the way from Dilly's Dreamland in a cloudburst!
What's the use?"

"Sir? How'd you know---- I mean what makes you say----"

"Never mind!" His father waved him to the stairway. "Get your clothes
off, if you don't want pneumonia. Dry yourself! Dry yourself! Get to
bed! Get to bed!"

"Yes, sir."

Filmer ascended to his own room and had almost finished preparing
himself for the night when Cousin Olita entered breezily, carrying a
filled hot-water bottle.

"Take it away!" Filmer made this a command. "Take it away and don't come
and sneak it up against me after you think I've gone to sleep! Take it
out, and don't you know better yet than to walk into people's rooms
while they're undressing?"

"But you're practically in your nightclothes, now," Cousin Olita said.
"Your mother thought maybe _I_ could persuade you; so _do_ let me just
put this----"

"No!" he shouted. "No! Go out and take it out with you. I'd as soon
sleep with a boiled lizard. I won't----" Suddenly he moderated his tone.
"Wait a minute. Look, Cousin Olita. Listen. Did you hear what Father
said to me down in the hall when I came in?"

"Yes, I was sitting in the living-room with them, Filmer. Your mother
was trying to reason a little with Cousin Ripley about you and Goody,
because of course both of you children----"

"Me?" Filmer said. "I don't see what _I_----"

"Oh, yes." Cousin Olita shook her head. "You see, coming on top of Goody
and the Chow----"

"Chow? What Chow?"

"Why, don't you remember?" Cousin Olita asked. "Goody's been days and
days talking about the Chow she wanted to get from Long Island, and just
before she went out this evening, why, of course she had to tell your
father that it's probably come, because she'd been notified by the
kennels that it'd been started. Well, it seems it isn't a Chow pup, you
see, because she knew beforehand what your father'd say when it made
difficulties. So it seems it's already over two years old; but he was
just as upset as if it wasn't, and he and Goody had quite a little time
over it together, and after she'd gone it turned out that she'd signed
your mother up to tell him about the visitor, too, so----"

"Visitor?" Filmer interrupted. "Do you mean the one next door? Dicksy
Boy?"

"No, no. That all came later," Cousin Olita informed him. "Your mother
had to tell him about Goody's going to have a visitor, a dear sweet
young Southern girl that Goody knew when she was away at school. She's a
real little beauty with lots of go, it seems, and they simply adored
each other and she's coming very soon and it'll be _so_ nice; but your
father's always had _such_ a prejudice against visitors--unless they're
relations of the family--so what between hearing about the Chow and
Goody's friend both coming, and of course he still feels terribly over
the way you didn't get to his office on time with those confidential
notes and then afterwards put 'em under the door where anybody----"

"So he had to bring _that_ up again, did he?" Filmer said. "Still
bringing it up, still bringing it up!"

"Yes. So when it all came out about the Harpeddle boy, Filmer, why, of
course he----"

"That's what I'm trying to ask you about," Filmer said, "if you'd ever
give me a chance. I mean what'd he mean when I came in and he commenced
talking about me associating with a mental defective, somebody that was
a moron and I went on a forbidden excursion with? Was he hinting----"

"Oh, no, not hinting," Cousin Olita explained. "You see, all _that_ came
on top of the worry about the Chow and Goody's visitor. It was already
getting late when it came out about the distress you caused poor Mrs.
Harpeddle, Filmer."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Harpeddle," Cousin Olita said. "You see, first they sent Mr.
Watson over here to ask what any of us knew about it, and then later I
went over there to see if I couldn't do something, and found everything
in _such_ a state! Mr. Watson had gone on from here to the Frys', you
see, Filmer----"

"Mr. Watson did? To the Frys'?"

"Yes, and so when he told Mr. and Mrs. Fry about the Harpeddle boy,
Filmer, why, Mrs. Fry thought she'd heard from upstairs that some of you
were yelling something about going out to this Dilly's New Dreamland,
and poor Mr. Fry took umbrellas and raincoats and got in his car and
drove all the way out there, and, after splashing all over the place, he
found them and brought Antoinette and Ellie Turner home with him."

"He did? You mean he----"

"He certainly did," Cousin Olita said. "I'm afraid it seems I was
terribly mistaken in what I told you about that poor Harpeddle boy this
afternoon, Filmer."

"You certainly were!" Filmer agreed. "What _is_ all this about me
causing his mother distress? I certainly wish I had. What----"

"I'm telling you, Filmer. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Watson feel just as terribly
about it as anybody. You see, they hadn't seen their cousin, poor Mrs.
Harpeddle, for years and years, and then to have all this happen----"

"Have all what happen? My goodness! Have all _what_ happen?"

"Why, all this that did happen, Filmer. She says the whole Harpeddle
family's had so much trouble with this young son that poor Mrs.
Harpeddle was having a nervous breakdown and right in the middle of it
they saw the only thing to do was to get him away from home and out of
the town where they live, so she started on a long motor trip with him,
keeping him always in the back seat with her. When they got here to the
Watsons' she thought it was a nice safe place and she could have a few
days' peaceful rest--and then to have him slip through the alley into
the garage and take the car out when it's so terribly important for him
never to touch it and he was absolutely forbidden----"

"He was?" Filmer said. "He is?"

"Oh, absolutely, Filmer! Mrs. Watson says Mrs. Harpeddle says the judge
says that if he ever hears of his driving a car in the next two years,
if it's only ten feet, he'll send him to the reformatory _absolutely_
and----"

"Send him where?" Pleasure lighted Filmer's eye. "Did you say----"

"Oh, my, yes indeed, Filmer! It seems his family have always had the
worst kind of trouble with him--couldn't get him past the fifth grade in
school--and finally it all came to a climax with this awful trial in the
traffic court, and an uncle of his had to use all kinds of political
influence, and Mrs. Watson says the only excuse for him is he doesn't
seem to have mind enough to be responsible. His poor mother had both Mr.
and Mrs. Watson pacing the garage with her, waiting for him, and when
they heard the car in the alley they turned the lights off and when he
drove in he turned them on--and there they were! He tried to be bold as
brass, in spite of everything Mr. Fry'd said to him out at Dilly's
Dreamland, because, you see, he isn't really very bright, Filmer, and
still thought he could smooth it all over with his mother; but they took
him in the house and she worked and worked on him till at last she got
him to crying and----"

"Got him to what?" Filmer was excited. "He did? Honestly? He did?"

"Oh, yes indeed he did!" Cousin Olita said. "After his mother'd talked
and talked about the judge, she got the Watsons to bring a Bible and
took her oath he'd not have another penny out of her for the next six
months. She told Mrs. Watson that always does it and said it was the
same old story--her son finds wild boys to go with wherever she takes
him. She said she thought it would be different here; but no, he always
finds them. She said she thought the worst thing in the whole affair was
your all playing on his weakness till he sneaked the car out and then
your slipping away and leaving him 'way out at that Dreamland place with
two strange girls on his hands. Mrs. Watson tried to speak up for you,
Filmer, but----"

"_Me?_" Filmer, who had slid into bed, made a movement as if to rise.
"Listen, I'm going straight over to Mr. and Mrs. Watson's----"

"Filmer! You can't!"

"All right, then; I'll go over the first thing tomorrow morning and
I'll----"

"No, you'll have to bear it, Filmer dear," Cousin Olita said. "They'll
be gone before you could get there. His mother said there was always
just one thing to do and so she'd get him away as quickly as she can
from the companionships he's started to form. She made him pack and
they're going to leave by six tomorrow morning. Now won't you let me put
the hot-water bottle----"

"I will not! Are you sure----"

"Oh, yes; they'll be gone right after daylight. Goodnight, Filmer."

In the dark Filmer lay frowning. Dicksy Boy wasn't going to stay all
summer; he wasn't going to stay at all, and what could have been better
news?--and yet, and yet Filmer experienced a regret that was partly
bafflement. The infamous Emperor Caligula's gayeties were such a curse
upon the earth that to all except himself every hour he lived seemed an
hour too long; yet, when he was liquidated by a self-appointed
committee, a great many other people were disappointed: they were sorry
that he hadn't lived anyhow long enough for them to go ahead with what
they'd planned to do to him. This was almost precisely Filmer's
condition, as he edged toward slumber.

He still felt like that the next morning when he approached Antoinette's
at about half past ten o'clock; but in the sunny air there were
indications that his associates in the previous night's adventures had
turned their thoughts to other matters. From Antoinette's yard there
were heard girlish squealings and basso-falsetto uproars in the
unreliable voices of young males about to become manlier. When Filmer
reached a point where he could look over Antoinette's hedge he saw that
Bill and Charlsworth had old Slops down upon the grass nimbly rolling
him, and that Antoinette and jolly little Ellie were looking on,
pretending to be horrified. Antoinette ran to Filmer as he came through
the gateway.

"Filmer darling!" she cried. "Come make Bill and Charl let poor old
Slops alone! They're all just acting simply _too_ screwbally this
morning!"

"Antoinette, listen," Filmer said. "Listen, Antoinette. Antoinette,
look. Did you hear about this Mrs. Harpeddle that's his mother and Mr.
and Mrs. Watson catching him last night when he had the front to think
that even after your father went out there and got you he could still
sneak his mother's car back into----"

"Yes, we know all about it, Filmer. Mrs. Watson was over to see my
mother this morning and----"

"Look, Antoinette," Filmer interrupted. "Antoinette, listen. Then you
know--you know he's gone, don't you?"

"Yes, wasn't he horrid?" Antoinette said carelessly. She tucked her arm
within Filmer's and drew him forward. "Please, Filmer! Do please come
make those two awful boys let poor Slops alone."

Nothing loath, Filmer advanced with Antoinette sweetly urging him.
"Listen, you mugs!" he said in a dignified way. "Bill, you and
Charlsworth are peculiar individuals; you're acting like great big bums
only about eight years old." Bill and Charlsworth had already allowed
Slops to rise, and the three stood staring satirically at Filmer, who,
on that account, decided to include Slops in his speech of reproof.
"Great big bums only about eight years old," he repeated. "Yes, all
three of you! I guess, though I might expect to see such conduct in
mental detectives and morons and----"

"Oh, you might?" Slops said sneeringly. "Listen a while, will you, Big
Boy Little! Look, whose friend was he, anyhow? Who brought him here in
the first place? Who came strutting in here to Antoinette's last night
all swelled up and sponsoring him and----"

"That's neither here nor there," Filmer, somewhat taken aback,
responded; and then, inspired he knew not whence, he asked hotly, "Am I
my brother's keeper?" This was so good that it surprised him; he felt
certain that it would bear repetition, perhaps frequently. "Am I my
brother's keeper?" he said, with even more heat. "Kindly answer me that,
will you? Am I my brother's keep----"

"Swill! Swill! Swill!" Charlsworth, Bill and Slops bellowed suddenly.

Filmer strove to be heard. "Answer me, please: Am I my broth----"

"Swill! Swill! Swill! Swill! Swill!"

The treachery of Charlsworth, Slops and Bill went even further. No
matter what he tried to say, they interfered in the same manner; and
then, when Antoinette, pronouncing them bum ruffians, again took
Filmer's arm and would have led him away, they tripped him up and rolled
him as old Slops had been rolled. It was a rowdy morning, and, though
before it was over Filmer helped Bill and Charlsworth to roll old Slops
again, he felt rather disgraced by it. He wanted Antoinette to think him
something higher than these clowning nitwits who never gave him a chance
to be alone with her to talk about what a person that's different from
other people does talk about.

He was troubled, too, because he hadn't yet been able to get her to tell
him exactly when she'd first noticed it.




CHAPTER XV


He was back at the Frys' in the afternoon, of course; arriving about
three o'clock and, recklessly, again accompanied by a creature he
counted upon to add to his own prestige with Antoinette. Goody was
unfortunately not at home when her Chow, an adult though runtish
specimen, had been delivered. This was at about half past two; and, when
Mrs. Little had settled the express company's C.O.D. account, Filmer's
plea that the poor undersized animal needed exercise after being in a
crate all this time seemed reasonable. He made an amateurish collar and
leash out of clothesline, and, for a while, tried to give the Chow a
needed loosening-up in large circles about the ample yard and
shrubberies. The Chow, kennel-soured and not born too gracious anyhow,
didn't like the collar, didn't like the rope and didn't like being
bawled at encouragingly while dragged by the neck. He might have learned
to be a better dog if he'd had a different experience that first day in
his new home.

Antoinette received him with outcries of joy so loud that Ellie Turner
was soon there, and so were Charlsworth Beck and Bill. Charlsworth and
Bill were contemptuous, supposing this new Chow to be Filmer's, nor did
he undeceive them; but Antoinette and Ellie were enchanted.

"He looks exactly like a darling beautiful little reddish wolf,"
Antoinette declared. "Let's get up a photoplay like Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs. I'll be Little Red Riding Hood and he'll be the Bad Old
Wolf all dressed up like a grandmother. Yip-p_ee_, Little Red Riding
Hood and the Bad Old Wolf!"

"Goofy!" Ellie said. "Aren't you over being seven years old yet,
Antoinette?"

"No, I want to!" Antoinette insisted. "I've got the dearest little red
hood ever was and I want you to see me in it, and my mother's got a red
cape, too. Just think how he'll look when we get him all dressed up like
a grandmother! He'll be darling; anybody can see he's perfectly
photogenic. Bill, you run get Slops to bring his birthday moving-picture
camera right away. He told me yesterday it was all mended again. Get
him! Run! I'll do the rest."

She skipped into the house and was dancing out within five minutes,
wearing the red hood and her mother's scarlet cape; she brought a
basket, too, and displayed herself in charming poses, singing, "Oh, I'm
Lit-_tul_ Red Riding Hood!" and shouting, "Look! How do I look now?
How'm I doing when I walk like this?" Meanwhile Bill returned with Slops
and the camera, for which she posed in exquisite motion; and then, when
she tired of prancing, she took from the basket a few things that her
mother didn't know had been removed from a chest upstairs. "Take a
gander!" Antoinette cried. "Here's the funniest darling old lace cap
with lappets my mother's great-grandmother or somebody used to wear and
her silk mittens and her cute little old taffeta basque. I've got lots
of rubber elastics and the strongest kind of safety-pins, so now we'll
dress the Bad Old Wolf up to be the grandmother he ate. Everybody help!"

Everybody helped, which may have been one reason why the Chow acquired
the conviction that in his new surroundings he had need to fight for his
very life.

At about four o'clock he was more or less in costume and partly upon
Antoinette's lap when this delusion evoked from him contortions so agile
that he seemed to possess the strength of seven and the speed of
seventy. Bitten hands grasped at him too tentatively; he went away, and,
but little impeded by what he wore as he made a great leap over the
Frys' hedge, was round the nearest corner before anybody could reach the
sidewalk to see which way he went.

Filmer, uneasy and under the correct impression that the vanished
creature was a thing of some price, had now once more to bear the
ingratitude of his friends. While Antoinette brought disinfectants from
the house to pour upon their injuries and her own, one and all assured
him that he was lucky to be rid of such an animal. The best thing that
could happen to Filmer, they said, would be if he never found him, and,
as for themselves, did anybody think they were going to wear their feet
off hunting for a dog that had bit them all up?

Setting forth to trace the Chow, Filmer went in wrong directions
exclusively. Inquiries addressed to pedestrians and to colored men
mowing lawns or clipping shrubberies brought him converse with nobody
who'd seen a reddish kind of Chinese-looking dog dressed up like Old
Times. Continuing discouragement, however, didn't make him give up the
search until late; he had a warrantable reluctance to return home
without any news at all. He was positive that he'd have a scene with
Goody, and there might be others, tediously, with everybody else; and
when at last he did come sluggishly into his own yard, toward dinner
time, he found that he'd at least been right about the scene with Goody.

She'd been what she called frenzied for three hours. She'd reached home
at about the time the Chow had left that neighborhood behind him, and
when her mother told her that Wu Wu--name supplied by Goody, quoting a
letter from the kennels--had arrived but was now out somewhere with
Filmer, for exercise, Goody said even Cousin Olita'd have known better
than to let that boy do such a thing. She went hurrying forth on foot;
for, although Crappio's had at last returned the Littles' sole remaining
car, her father had driven himself downtown in it, announcing that
henceforth it would spend its days in a parking lot near his place of
business, except at night when it would be locked in the home garage.
Passing the house of the Frys', Goody saw friends of Filmer's there,
busy before a small camera; she applied to them and was told that they
all thought Wu Wu was Filmer's property; they wouldn't have dreamed of
getting Wu Wu so excited otherwise. They had an impression that Filmer'd
gone to look for Wu Wu somewhere.

Goody made a running tour of several blocks without discovering any
trace of either Filmer or Wu Wu; then she ran home and made use of the
telephone, calling active friends of hers to go forth upon the search.
One of these, of faithful heart, had been successful. Young Hamilton
Ellers mounted a fast bicycle, and, after covering much territory, he'd
come upon Wu Wu eating something bad in the lot behind the Glue Works
and still wearing some of Antoinette's ancestress's taffeta basque
safety-pinned about his middle. Having delivered the animal to its
pleasingly grateful owner, Hamilton Ellers had laughed off her
suggestion of the Pasteur treatment but had gone as quickly as possible
to a drug store. Thus, when the foot-dragging Filmer entered the
Littles' driveway gates, Wu Wu was already within the house; and Goody,
who'd been looking from a window, hurried outdoors to meet her brother.
She created the scene with him as spiritedly as if Wu Wu were still a
wanderer.

Informed by Cousin Olita, from a distance, that dinner was getting
pretty spoiled, both entered the front door almost shouting; but the
hall already contained more noise than they were making. Ripley Little
had just tripped over Wu Wu, and Wu Wu had bitten Ripley Little on the
shoe. Subsequently, at the table, Ripley Little praised Filmer for
trying to lose Wu Wu.

This seems to have been the beginning of the feud between Wu Wu and
Ripley Little. Wu Wu, uprooted from everything previously familiar to
him, distracted by thunderous hours of railway travel in vibrant dark
enclosure, then dragged by the neck to be manhandled and suffocated in
repellent fabrics, had made for himself a little interval of liberty,
only to be captured and borne through the air to a place where great
weights smelling of repulsive leather polish were applied to his ribs;
and this last was, to Wu Wu's mind, the climax. The great weights and
the leather polish he correctly attributed to Ripley Little, and
thenceforth connected all the worst that had happened to him with this
person. Ripley Little thought Wu Wu a dangerous dog, and Wu Wu thought
Ripley Little a dangerous man.

During the day after that of Wu Wu's arrival, the small Chow consented
to be somewhat tolerant of almost everybody in the household; he found
himself to be really congenial with Gentry Poindexter, and didn't wholly
object to Mrs. Little or to Cousin Olita or to Almatina. He felt an
instant affection for the cook, reticently accepted overtures even from
Filmer, and, coaxed, coddled and fed by Goody, properly adopted her,
found her his light of the world. As the head of the house didn't return
until evening, Wu Wu decided that this place might be all right after
all and began to look upon it as his own property. He was asleep in a
relaxed attitude on the floor of the dark upper hallway when his dreams
were shattered by that same dangerous intruder who smelt of leather
polish.

The former encounter was repeated. Little, upstairs to refresh his
appearance before dinner, stepped on Wu Wu, and Wu Wu, though no fool,
was certain that the foot on his face hadn't come there accidentally.
This time he bit Ripley Little just above the ankle, then sped down the
stairs screeching for Goody's help and consolation.

Goody, rushing from the living-room below, knelt, took Wu Wu in her arms
and shouted upward a number of descriptions of people who aren't even
sorry when they've kicked a helpless little dog. Her father, at the top
of the stairs, denounced Chows and used gestures that caused Wu Wu to
bark up at him passionately from Goody's arms. Goody repeated herself,
added criticism of people who won't let their own families use a car or
buy a new one for them; and Little tried his best to be heard over both
Goody and Wu Wu. His short-necked and somewhat strangulated voice was at
a disadvantage; nevertheless, it was easily in the money.

Mrs. Little came fluttering from her room imperfectly clad; she got her
husband into his bathroom, applied lotions to his injury and promised
him that he wouldn't have hydrophobia. "Nearly broke my jam neck over
him," Little said. "Then he attacked me again, and now, the way she puts
it, why, he had a right to because I kicked him! Didn't I tell you last
night I _knew_ he was going to bite me again? He'll bite anybody that
comes near him. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on him. Dog? Not a drop
of dog in him; not a drop! He's half red-widow spider and half oriental
panda; yet she'll swear it was my fault till the jobjam cows come home!"

"Now, Ripley, please!" Mrs. Little begged. "Goody only heard Wu Wu
yelping and she naturally thought--I mean she doesn't mean----"

"She means I ought to _like_ to get my foot bit off by something named
Wu Wu. Why, job jam it, if it was really a dog would its name be Wu Wu?"

"Now, Ripley, please!"

"Talks about a new car," he complained. "What for? So she could let Wu
Wu drive it? I've been thinking for a while we were maybe getting a
little peace in this house because it's been seeming not wholly given
over to being a swing asylum for her percussion instrument maniac
boyfriends that try to shake ceilings down and pound the last few
entrails out of poor old half-murdered pianos. Why, jam my----"

"Now, Ripley, please don't start yourself up again. You're not really
hurt and Goody knows it or she'd be sorry."

"She knows it, does she? How, Mrs. Little, if you please? How?"

"Why, by the way you were bell---- I mean, by the way you sounded. Now,
Ripley, you mustn't get yourself started up again just when there's such
a nice thing going to happen for all of us."

"'Nice thing going to happen'?" Little permitted his trouser-leg to
resume its place over his injured ankle and looked at her suspiciously.
"'For all of us'?" he said. "You're sure that includes me?"

"Why, of course, darling."

"When's it going to happen?"

"Tomorrow, Ripley. You know that."

"I do not. What is it?"

"Why, it's Henrietta Pellar."

"What's Henriettapellar? Another Chow?"

"Ripley! I _told_ you she's coming."

"Oh, yes," Little said gloomily. "I remember--the 'dear lovely young
thing from just over the Mason and Dixon line' that was in Goody's class
at school. No, you didn't tell me she's going to get here as soon as
tomorrow. Do you think it's too late for us to wire her parents to keep
her home where she belongs?"

"Ripley, I _know_ you'll be as nice to her as you can, dear, on Goody's
account and--and that after this, too, you'll be careful about stepping
on Wu Wu again and----"

"On Goody's account?" Little asked. "You mean I oughtn't to step on him
on Goody's account? What about _mine_? Doesn't Father ever get to have
any feelings, not even when he's bit? If I'm nice and cooing to her
visitor and stop getting macerated by Wu Wu on Goody's account, do you
suppose maybe she'll let-up on me day and night about buying a new car
to be turned into a hospital-feeder?"

"But, Ripley, at her age----"

"I've got an age, too, haven't I?" he urged. "I've got _some_ age,
haven't I--or isn't Father allowed any such perquisite? No, I guess not,
and I'll bet my dobdab head that from now on if I ever start to sit in
one of my own chairs to read a newspaper I won't get three-quarters of
the way down without having to leap like a gymnast because her jobjam Wu
Wu's already there and snarling he'll tear out my pancreas if I sit on
him! Already I can't walk through my own upstairs hall without her
claiming he's got a right to bite my jobjam feet off. On top of a Chow,
you inform me my house is now to be filled with a frizzle-headed
jitter-squawker that'll bring all the rhumba-thumping, boops-a-daisy
ice-box raiders in town to----"

"No, no, no!" Mrs. Little laughed. "Henrietta isn't frizzle-headed at
all. She's the darlingest little brunette, sweet as kittens, and you'll
just love her!"

"Kittens? And I'll just love her?" Ripley Little looked piercingly at
his wife. "I know exactly what you mean; I'd rather be dead than try to
live in the same house with one of those."

"Now, Ripley! Do get ready for dinner, dear. It's waiting and----"

"Look at you," he said. "Not going to put on even a jobjam petticoat?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, and ran to her own room.




CHAPTER XVI


Driving home at five in the afternoon, Little's mind was less upon the
traffic than upon the beautiful girl he expected to meet when he reached
his house. By this time, he supposed, the place would probably be all
choked up with boys and noise and Wu Wu and Southern accent and
whatever'd happened to Filmer that day and all the rest of it. Thus he
was surprised to find a quiet house awaiting him, Filmer placid, no
other young people within sight or sound and Wu Wu not actively
demonstrative. As Little came into the living-room the Chow merely gave
him a single glance of dislike and retired upstairs to Goody's
sheltering bedchamber. Mrs. Little, looking up from her Bundles for
Britain knitting, explained the peacefulness.

"We're all in love with her and so'll you be, Ripley. Oh, yes, you will;
you'll see! Even Filmer couldn't resist her; could you, Filmer?"

"He doesn't think it's manly to admit it," Cousin Olita said, as Filmer
only grunted; "but of course he couldn't. It was so lovely to see all
the gay young things together, Cousin Ripley, like a bouquet of
flowers--like rosebuds dancing in the sun and----"

"They don't," Filmer told her gruffly. "Rosebuds don't dance. And do you
call Bull Thetford and Ham Ellers and Ruggo Smart and Hot Toddy and
Norman Peel rosebuds, kindly answer?"

"So?" Little said. "Then they've all been here, have they?"

"Oh, yes indeed!" his wife answered. "Goody had them all flocking
in--oh, yes, certainly, Norman Peel too, dear--just after Ham and she
brought her from the station. Then there were Ruggo Smart's twin
sisters, besides--Eunice and Patricia----"

"Cousin Wilma means the ones they call Cuckoo and Screwball," Cousin
Olita explained in the manner of a translator. "Eunice and Patricia
Smart are such charmingly pretty twins--so strapping big and sweet and
full of animal spirits!--I shouldn't think they'd like being called
Cuckoo and Screwball."

"You shouldn't?" Ripley Little asked. "What good would it do 'em if they
didn't--in that outfit?"

"I believe they do, though, Cousin Ripley," Cousin Olita said. "Goody
says they'd feel the rest didn't like 'em if they stopped calling 'em
Cuckoo and Screwball. I remember a girl in my set we called Old Snoot
but not to her face. That seems to be the difference."

"Patricia and Eunice were just as delighted with darling little
Henrietta as anybody," Mrs. Little continued. "As Cousin Olita says, it
was really fun to watch them start frolicking right away." She laughed.
"They never do stay put nowadays. Just before you came, Ripley, they all
trooped out and nobody knows when we'll see our two back again. They
were going to eat at the Hi Toots hamburger stand and the Doughnut
Dunker just off the park, and then movies and goodness knows what seemed
to be in prospect. I think you don't need to worry about having a quiet
evening, dear."

Little said that was a blessing, and the evening was indeed as eventless
as his wife had promised. At ten he went upstairs through a silence
broken only by his own muttered responses and a low growling evoked from
Goody's bedroom by the sound of his footsteps.

...At twelve he woke with a first impression that he'd fallen asleep
under a chute at the stockyards; but he realized that in such places the
tramplings of the herds are not accompanied by jitter-music, and
besides, the disturbance that wobbled the house was going on not above
but below him, in the living-room and hall downstairs. The poor old
piano was at work and the boys had brought their percussion instruments.
Something believed to be dancing was taking place, accomplished by
syncopated floor-thumpings; and there were sounds that he recognized as
being within modern youth's definition of the word "singing". A fresh
young female voice, unfamiliar to him, yelled excruciatingly:

    "Ib dib! Abba ubba ducka! Fisha eata pie!
    Swish me! Kish me! Roll me in your arms!
    Hippa! Dippa! Beat them fire alarms!
    Ock! Bock! Oradoodle! Utch! Bluck! _Yip!_ Hi-_yi!_"

As the voice wasn't Goody's nor either of the terrible voices of the
twins, Screwball and Cuckoo, too well known to him, Ripley Little
rightly identified his midnight serenader as the guest in his house,
Miss Henrietta Pellar. Cheers and floor-thumpings followed her effort.
Long and hysterical were the bawlings and squealings of "Ya-a-ay,
Henrietter!"

More dancing ensued, seemingly by two-ton centipedes; the floor of
Little's bedroom vibrated, and finally, when he'd just about decided to
go downstairs in his good old-fashioned nightshirt, roaring, there was a
lull. It followed jocosely animal-like howls and a clumping toward the
rear of the house: the icebox raid was on, and for the next hour or so
Ripley Little had fitful snatches of sleep. From one of these, at about
three, he was thoroughly roused by the sound of a large drum and a pair
of cymbals rolling down the front steps; then there was quiet, though a
half-whisper half-coo, passing his door, said audibly, "Honey, I do hope
those cute boys' noise didn't get your poor old dadda waked up squawling
mad, the way you say he does."

Goody's voice, responding, was less restrained; she didn't seem to care.
"It's all right. He never minds anything so long as Norman Peel is
there. Don't you love Norman, too, Henrietta?"

Ripley Little conquered his impulse to call through the door. He had
things in mind to say; but it seemed wiser to go on bearing them,
instead.

                 *        *        *        *        *

...He didn't meet the visitor at breakfast--the girls were resting,
Mrs. Little said, so to be fresh for a party that evening at Screwball's
and Cuckoo's--and it was not until after his return home in the late
afternoon that he had his first experience of Henrietta. A moment
earlier a prediction of his came perfectly true: with a newspaper in his
hand, he almost sat down upon Wu Wu in the large living-room chair Wu Wu
joined him in favoring. Wu Wu snarled a last-instant warning; and
Little, after convulsively recovering his balance, called Wu Wu a jab
jammed bastinadoed son of a bullfinch.

In the hall a heaven-thrilling voice cried, "Oh, oh, _oh!_" and a lovely
person walked in. Charmingly smallish, she looked childlike, had the
big-dark-eyed warm and trustful gaze of a gentle gazelle; her wavy brown
hair showed a fine nimbus of gold in the late sunshine from the western
window, and her movements were as lyrically graceful as those of Goody
herself. She came unhesitatingly to Ripley Little, looked up archly into
his eyes and shook a reproving forefinger close to his face.

"You sinful man!" she said. "I heard you cursing poor little Pussy. Oh,
my me!"

"Who?" Little asked. "You heard me cursing who?"

"Yes, suh; cursing poor little Pussy. Dint you know Goody and me gone
and changed Wu Wu's name to Pussy? Don't you like Pussy better your
ownself, Mr. Little? Pussy a lot cuter name for a Chow, we think.
Anyhow, he's Pussy from now on. Ain't you shame cursing a poor little
dog with a sweet little name like Pussy?"

"Uh----" Little was confused. In a way Henrietta seemed much more
attractive than he'd expected--and then in another way she didn't. That
is, intrinsically she seemed attractive; but he didn't like her using so
much archness on him. He never liked feeling that he was being
blandished. However, he contrived a smile, said he hoped she'd enjoy her
visit to his daughter and protested that he hadn't cursed Wu Wu.

"Now, now!" Henrietta shook her delicate forefinger in his face again.
"You going to act the big tough-minded man that won't ever change his
opinions and bound not to call him Pussy, no matter how many poor
sobbing ladies beg you?"

"Well, Pussy, then," Little said, indulging her. "It's a horrible name;
but I don't know that it's much worse than Wu Wu. You're mistaken,
though, about my----"

"About you swearing so hard?" Henrietta laughed. "Don't you be
embarrassed one minute, Mr. Little. We young generation nowadays talk
right out our ownselves sometimes, sex and sex alike, oh, my me, yes!
What I heard you call Pussy made me feel mighty at-homelike, and if
you'll only keep it up I ain't going miss my own loving dadda so much.
When he rips loose, Mr. Little, people really hear something--he's got
command o' worse than almost anything you gentlemen up North'd be liable
to use." She'd been looking Little in the eye all the time; now she
confidently took his hand. "I do hope you're going to love your little
Henrietta, Mr. Little. She just loves everybody, her ownself."

"Uh--do you?" Henrietta's warm upward gaze, continuing, made Little
uncomfortable; he feared she showed a disposition to curl up against
him. "That's--uh--nice," he said. He detached his hand from hers, as if
absently, and, taking a chair not occupied by Pussy, coughed and shook
out his newspaper.

"Henrietta loves everybody in this house," Henrietta said. "Goody and
Mrs. Little and Cousin Olita and Pussy and that dear little yodel-voiced
Filmer, and she _hopes_ there's somebody else, the top of 'em all,
that's going to let poor Henrietta love _him_. You think maybe it's
going be arranged for, Mr. Little?"

More uncomfortable, "That's--that's very nice," he said. "I'm glad
you--uh--find things pleasant here." He coughed again and lifted the
newspaper.

Henrietta came and sat on the arm of his chair.

"I do truly love to talk to the older men," she said. "I bet you got no
idea how tired a girl gets of all this chipper-chapper she has to do
with boys her own age. Besides, you don't know it, Mr. Little; but you
and me practically dear old friends already."

"We are?"

"Oh, my me, yes, indeedy! Dint Goody talk to me all through school about
her family same's as I did her about mine? Hours and hours I'd tell her
about my loving dadda and she'd tell me about hers, and our mothers and
all our brothers and sisters and everybody. Why, when I walked in here
yesterday it was just like walking in home. Everybody so sweet to me I
been feeling ever since I got here I'm just one the family. Don't you
_dare_ tell Henrietta she and you ain't old friends already, Mr. Little!
What you say to that?"

"Well--I----" he began. "Of course I hope indeed----"

"You better!" She laughed and tapped his shoulder with her small light
hand. "You better hope indeed! A little bird kind of whisper in my ear
you suppose to be one of the quick-temperedest gentlemen in the whole
United States, Mr. Little; all the same I bet you mighty sweet in your
heart o' hearts. Yes, suh! In your heart o' hearts I bet you're good as
gold if the right person comes along and knows how to go at you. You
tell me: Ain't it the trufe?"

It wasn't exactly the truth. Little's middle-aged impulse was to rise
and change his chair; Henrietta was making him feel more and more
uncomfortable, and he feared that some member of his family might walk
in and see him in his present disadvantageous attitude. Even that job
jammed Pussy, who was still in the best chair and watching him with
morose red eyes, made him uneasy. There was something galling in Pussy's
gaze, something most unfair that seemed to say, "Oh, yes, I'm onto you!"
Little realized that it was ridiculous to resent a Chow's opinion;
nevertheless he wanted to hit Pussy.

Henrietta prattled on. "I bet spite of all the noise you make you just a
sentimental dear old schizoid," she said, and her soft little fingers
gave his reddening cheek a feathery pat.

"What?" he asked. "You bet I'm a schiz-what?"

"A schizoid," the laughing Henrietta answered, patted his cheek again
and swung her feet childishly. "It's one them funny things Goody and I
had in our psychology class. I just know you're a darling precious old
schizoid--so really softhearted you think you got to go round barking
and gruffing at everybody to keep 'em from finding out what a sweet
tender loving little old heart you really got--right in there." She
placed a small curled forefinger on his chest. "Right in _there!_
Henrietta knows. You tell her."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken." Little tried to withdraw himself into the
back of the chair. "I certainly am not a schiz----"

"Yes, you are! You live in a funny little old dream-world of your own
and----"

"In a what of my own?" Ripley Little was now as antagonized as he was
embarrassed. "I don't do any such thing. I----"

"Yes, you do! You live in a funny old dream-world of your own and
it----"

"I do? I don't," he said. "You're entirely mistaken; I never heard worse
nonsense, Miss uh--Pellar."

"What you calling me? You going keep on Missmissing me, honey?"

"No, Henrietta," Little said quickly, for she seemed to threaten him
affectionately; he was afraid she'd kiss him.

"Yes, you _better_ hurry call me right!" Henrietta cried. "So what'll
_I_ call _you?_ Of course my dadda at home's my own bes' true-and-loving
dadda; but I'm going to call you my Dadda Little."

"Your--you are?"

"Dadda Little," the fearless Henrietta said, and her arm slid trustfully
from the back of the chair to his shoulder. "My Dadda Little. So look,
Dadda Little, now you got _two_ sweet little daughters in your home, me
and Goody. You like it?"

"Uh--oh, yes, of course," he felt he had to reply to the direct inquiry.
"Why, certainly." Well he knew this to be untrue; he didn't like it a
jobjam bit and never in his life had he found himself in a falser
position.

"Course you do, Dadda Little! There! So now you and me all in cahoots
together and going do everything each other wants. For instance, I'm
going praise Normie Peel up to Goody every chance I get."

"What? What for?"

Henrietta laughed. "Dadda Little, they _all_ know everything's right
with you so long as Normie's there. Why, Goody says----"

"It doesn't make any difference what she says, I----"

"Now, now! You want to make _both_ your two little daughters happy,
don't you? Of course you do! Quit pretending Normie isn't your pick,
because you just putting-on; and look how Goody's trying to please you
being sweet to him! Aren't you going try to please her and Henrietta in
_return_, Dadda Little?"

"I don't think so. In what way?"

Henrietta swung her feet, pressed his shoulder with her arm, placed her
loving face almost nose to nose with his. "Dadda Little, aren't you
going to buy your sweet Goody that beautiful new green convertible she
says she's had the agent bring here four times and you wouldn't even
look at it out the window? Aren't you, Dadda Little?"

"I am not!" The words seemed to explode from Little, such was his
vehemence. Courtesy to a guest can be overstraining; politeness or no
politeness, he rose, dislodging Henrietta, and stood with his back to
the wall. "I certainly am job jam not!"

"Yes, you is!" Henrietta reached him in a jump, seized his left hand,
set her cheek against his coat sleeve. "Yes, you is, you sinful Dadda
Little! I'm going be busy every minute in this sweet home working on
you. Right now I got to go dress for the party; but don't forget!" She
ran to the door, turned there, threw him a kiss. "You and me in cahoots,
Dadda Little!" she cried. "Don't fordet!" Then she prettily scampered
into the hall and up the stairway.

Mrs. Little came in, a few minutes later, and found her husband trying
to read his newspaper, but in a bad condition. His face was still red;
his neck was swelled and his breathing labored. "See here!" he said.
"How long is she invited for?"

"Now, Ripley, please! I told you she's staying over the Fourth."

"How _long_ over?"

"Now, Ripley----"

"Goody's sicked her on me about that jabjam car," Little said. "She's
sicked her on me and she tried semi-infantile persuasions on me that'd
make a horse blush. She says she's going to call me Dadda Little
and----"

"Oh, my!" Mrs. Little murmured, and looked frightened. "Oh, my!"

"Listen, Mrs. Little! If she does that before people or where anybody
can hear her----"

"Now, Ripley, please. I'm sure she wouldn't. Oh, my!"

"Listen, Mrs. Little! For the rest of her time here I'm going downtown
to a hotel."

"Please don't talk like that; please don't, Ripley!"

"All right," he said fiercely. "All right! I'll stay. But if I've got to
be subjected to----"

"Oh, indeed you won't, dear," Mrs. Little assured him. "They're dated up
for almost every minute she's to be here. Right now, for instance,
they're flying off as fast as they can. You won't have to even see her
again tonight."

"Maybe I won't," he said. "I'll bet my dab soul I hear her, though!"




CHAPTER XVII


He was not in error. Modern youth, entertaining itself, has become
inexhaustibly migratory, pathetically believing that in constant change
of background lies the only true happiness; and among the residences
this night visited by a party from the party after the party was that of
Ripley Little. He woke to screams of "Yip-p_ee_, Henrietter!" There were
thumpings, cheers, unbearable whistlings, ecstasied outcries.
"Henrietter! Henrietter! Do your stuff, Henrietter!"

The hour could be called advanced, being toward four of the morning, and
Little had hoped to feel bright for important business on hand that day;
but Henrietta did her stuff. When again--and again and again--he heard
"Swish me! Kish me!" the middle-aged man overhead ached to comply with
the request for the swishing.

Once he got as far as the side of the bed, sitting upright with his feet
on the floor; but he gave up his idea and relapsed, groaning. His
experience of Henrietta in the afternoon had made a coward of him. With
a fatal prescience he knew what she'd do. He said to himself that he
didn't care a hot dabbled continental cuss what any of those
screech-and-speed child-maniacs downstairs thought of him; but he wasn't
going to be called Dadda Little before them in his nightshirt, even if
he stopped to put a bathrobe over it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

...Mutual insomnia drew father and son closer when the morning had
come. Filmer's almost losing Wu Wu, now Pussy, had already helped to
restore the lad to his previous favor, and the complaints of the two
that the past night had been an outrage formed a sort of duet in
congenial dissonances. Just before he left, Ripley Little gave his boy a
dollar.

"Get rid of it today or tomorrow, my boy," the father said. "Don't wait
till the day after that, because I don't want you to spend it on the
Fourth of July. I've no doubt there'll be uproar in this house; but
outside of it a man's got a right to hope the country has sense enough,
at least _this_ year, for a sane Fourth. You can't have a safe _and_
sane Fourth, because there's no such thing as safety left in the world;
but with all the bang-whack-bang smashing that's going on across the
water, and nobody over here knowing what to do except to make speeches
about everybody else's being wrong, it seems about time to leave out the
fireworks. Do what you like with the dollar, Filmer, except don't spend
it on the Fourth."

"No, sir," Filmer promised, and, a few minutes later, spoke severely to
his mother. "Father couldn't be righter," he said. "All this rowdyism
like last night ought to stop. It seems pretty peculiar that with Hitler
going on and everything, decent people have got to be kept awake--and
then the very ones that do it stick in bed and sleep till noon! Why, you
take the way this household acts, let alone all the gibble-gobble he has
to bear from Cousin Olita, I wonder Father can go downtown and preside
over his business without a doctor. Looking at the way this household
behaves----"

"You're a member of it, aren't you, Filmer?" Mrs. Little reminded him.
Then she added, "I'm afraid he _will_ be getting upset over the Fourth
of July, though. For one thing, I hear your friends the Frys intend to
give quite a fireworks party. They've never seemed very intelligent, the
Frys."

"Listen!" Filmer said. "If you call 'em my friends in one breath and
employ the next to go throwing slights on their intellect, is that
showing logic? I don't say they're my friends and I don't say they're
not; but I do request a little logic in your treatment of them. If you
haven't got any, why, just say so and we'll stop referring to it."

"Referring to what, Filmer?" Mrs. Little asked absently; but, without
awaiting a reply, sighed and murmured, "Oh, I _do_ hope we can get past
the Fourth without too much----"

She didn't need to finish the sentence. Her prayer was that her
husband's temperament could be soothed and coaxed along through their
merry young visitor's stay--kept merely simmering and bubbling under
cover, as it were--without openly blowing up. Her hope increased during
the next two days, especially as both nights were passed in an
unreverberant house, Goody and her circle entertaining Henrietta
elsewhere.

Ripley Little caught nothing more than glimpses of the visitor. Indeed,
she and Goody, away to dine, to lunch, to dance, to swim in the Country
Club pool, or for tennis, returned to the house only for the fastest
possible changes of dress or to sleep through the mornings; and on the
Fourth, after three hours' slumber, from five to eight, they were off to
a breakfast and later a sporting excursion that couldn't possibly end
before midnight. Mrs. Little breathed with more assurance; her husband's
holiday at home promised to be an unusually serene one. The day passed
with fewer popping sounds in the neighborhood than she remembered upon
any previous Fourth, and when the Frys' fireworks party began to be
heard, at about nine o'clock, the sounds it made were mainly but
fizzings. It was almost ten when Gentry Poindexter came plunging into
the house, and, shouting, ascended the stairway leapingly.

"We got to get to the roof!" he shouted down to his employer. "Roof, Mr.
Little, roof!"

"Is it on fire, Gentry?"

"No, suh. He out on it. I got a clothesline. He might be slippin'!"

Having climbed the two flights and reached the upper night air by way of
the manhole on the roof, Little discovered that Gentry Poindexter's
pronoun designated Filmer.

At twenty-five or forty, Filmer wouldn't have done what he had done--not
unless he had remained almost fifteen when he was twenty-five or forty,
as some people do though often only with the assistance of liquor. He'd
left the Frys' fireworks party before it was over, and returned home,
gone up to the attic, ascended to the roof, and with difficulty had
climbed to the top of a chimney, carrying with him four skyrockets
purchased with the dollar his father had given him two days earlier.

Dangerously maintaining himself upon the chimney, he'd uttered
vainglorious outcries until he had the attention of most of the
fireworks party. They could see him, from the third yard up the street,
a small figure over and between tree tops, and waving arms against the
high night sky. He called loudly: "Look! Look, Bill! Look, Slops! Look,
Charl! Look, Ellie! Look, Antoinette! Antoinette, look! _Look_,
Antoinette!"

Then, with everybody who saw him shouting remonstrances, and distant red
fire illumining him, he attempted to set off the first of his rockets,
which he'd placed uncertainly against a projection within the chimney.
The rocket fizzed fire, and, seeming to dislike Filmer, turned upon him,
burned his left ear severely and dislodged him from the chimney. His
fall was not to the ground but to the slanting slate roof of the gable
Norman Peel didn't care for; and here Filmer remained, mentally confused
and aurally agonized, until hauled up by his noisy father and Gentry
Poindexter at the end of a tripled clothesline.

Later, after old Dr. Fitch had gone home, Ripley Little's bedside manner
was undesirable, especially when Filmer insisted that he had to get up
and go back to the party. The son's theory that his character was
perfect and that his reputation for probity couldn't be attacked got
nowhere with the father, who became more impatient every time Filmer
plaintively repeated, "But I _didn't_ buy those skyrockets on the
Fourth. I bought 'em the very day you gave me the money, and you only
said not to buy 'em on the Fourth of July. You didn't say '_for_', you
said '_on_'!" Moreover, Filmer's explanation that he'd ascended the
chimney in order to make his rockets go that much higher didn't clear up
his motive to Ripley Little. Yet how simple it was, and how strange it
is that often the simplest springs of human conduct appear obscure!

To one person, however, and this one the last to be expected, Filmer's
motive was as open as the day. When he came down to breakfast the next
morning, his father had gone and the visitor was still abed; but Mrs.
Little and Goody and Cousin Olita were at the table.

"Dr. Fitch said he didn't think your ear'd be serious, dear," his mother
said, glancing at the large bandage;--"but don't you think it'd be wise
for you to stay in bed till we see whether anything's going to develop
from it or not?"

Filmer was stern. "I do not. What's more, I had no business to be made
to go to bed last night. If Father hadn't been so upset lately over the
way respectable individuals can't get to sleep in this house at
night----"

Goody looked up, smiling tenderly. "It seemed to be entirely about you
that he was so upset this morning, Filmer dear. Is your ear really
inside all that wrapping, child?"

"Child?" Filmer said. "Child! Is it my ear or yours? Mine, I beg to
believe, isn't it?"

"Yes indeed, child. To tell the truth I've never cared for it at all."

"Children, children!" Mrs. Little said. "Filmer, your poor father simply
can't understand----"

"Are you," Filmer asked, "or aren't you supposed to be my mother? Just
because my father has to continue raking all this up ad nauseam is it
your province to abut him in it?"

"To what?" she said. "Never mind. Your father says your doing such a
thing at your age----"

"Listen! Haven't I explained at least three thousand times my age hasn't
got a single thing to do with it?"

"Of course it hasn't." Cousin Olita, the one who comprehended, thus came
to his aid. "He's perfectly right, Cousin Wilma," she said. "People fall
in love at any age. That was why Filmer climbed up on the chimney and
set off the rocket to get noticed, you see."

Goody was quick. "To get noticed by whom, Cousin Olita?"

"Now, Goody!" Cousin Olita shook her head amiably. "You ought to
sympathize with him."

"Listen!" Filmer spoke uneasily. "What's all this balderdish? I'm tired
of all this talk about my ear. How long'd he say I haf to keep this
bandage on, Mother?"

"Who was it?" Goody asked. "Who was it he climbed on the chimney to be
noticed by?"

"Now, Goody," Cousin Olita said, "you haven't a bit more right to be in
love with Norman Peel than Filmer has to be in love with dear little
Antoinette Fry."

"What!" Filmer had believed his own condition so private to himself that
he was badly staggered. "What--who--who says I am?"

Cousin Olita beamed upon him. "Why, all the other boys are in love with
little Antoinette Fry, too, Filmer. Her mother says she's a regular
little genius for knowing what it takes, and says it's _so_ funny to
watch you all half-fighting each other over her! Everybody in the
neighborhood thinks you've got it the worst, though, Filmer. That dear
little Antoinette Fry----"

"'That dear little Antoinette Fry'!" Filmer interrupted, satirizing
hotly. It was horrible to hear slushy-mush old Cousin Olita speaking
loosely of Antoinette; and to be taxed with love, to have his most
precious inwards profaned, bandied about--he made his voice as
abominable as he could. "Dear little Antoinette Fry! Dear little
Antoinette Fry! You make me sick and so does she! I HATE dear little
Antoinette Fry!"

"No, Filmer dear." Cousin Olita was on her way to the door. "It makes
_me_ feel a child again to hear you say it, though; it's just the way my
two little brothers talked when they were your age. Wait till you're a
bit older and bigger; you'll be _proud_ to----"

"I will not!" he bawled. "I'm already older and bigger! I'm not going to
stand everybody going around gossiping about me, and I----" Then, as
Cousin Olita was out of hearing, he turned quaveringly to his mother.
"Her mind always did go wandering from pillow to post. Now she hasn't
got one iota left."

Goody looked at him waggishly. "Don't you think her trouble is she's
love-starved, Filmer?"

"You shut up!" he returned, unpardonably primitive. "Her trouble is
she's an old maid, same as you."

Goody shrieked joyously. "An old maid? Cousin Olita? You heard him,
Mother?"

"Why, dear me, didn't you know, Filmer?" Mrs. Little said, and kindly
explained. "Cousin Olita's been married three times. She's had three
husbands, dear."

"Cousin Olita has?" Filmer asked, surprised, though throughout his life
his interest in Cousin Olita had been less than negative. "I never heard
her say so," he added. "Did they leave her any money?"

"No, they just left her," Mrs. Little told him absently. "I believe she
had some property of her own; but she got engaged again after the last
one, and he made a bad investment for her. That was when she came to
live with us."

"She did?" Filmer said. "What's her name?"

Goody's mouth opened. "What's her what?"

"Her name, stupid, her name."

Goody made a loud outcry. "Oh, my soul and slippers! It's Filmer, the
same as yours, because she always got her maiden name back. Is he
honestly my brother, Mother; isn't he adopted? Here he's lived in the
same house with Cousin Olita about half his life, and did you hear him?
Asking 'What's her name'! I knew there were colossal dumbnesses in this
world; but I didn't think I'd ever live to have a brother that----"

"Liss-_sun!_" Filmer shouted, and made the dining-room resound with
proclamations of the dumbness of Goody's Norman Peel.

Goody's rejoinders were lively, and Mrs. Little's repetitions of
"Children, children!" ineffective. Debate was on: Whether Filmer was any
brighter than the average, as he claimed and offered to prove by his
school records, or whether Norman Peel was the dumbest person now alive
or dead, or whether Norman had the brightest mind on earth and Filmer
the dumbest? Argument became so descriptive and biographical that kindly
Cousin Olita unfortunately returned to the dining-room as a peacemaker.

"Goody dear," Cousin Olita said. "Suppose Filmer _is_ as dumb as you say
he is, isn't he still your brother? Filmer dear, stop and think. Suppose
Goody said little Antoinette Fry's worse dish-faced than you say Norman
Peel is, wouldn't you love little Antoinette Fry all the more and be her
stout young champion and----"

Filmer made no effort to contain himself, and, in his pain, found equals
for Norman Peel in Cousin Olita's three husbands and her final fianc.
"I bet they were!" he shouted. "I bet ten thousand dollars they were all
four of 'em as dumb as Normie Peel himself! I bet that's why you married
'em and where you learned to talk the way you do! I bet ten thousand
dollars----"

He was now so outrageous that no one else could be heard at all, and
when Gentry came in to arrange a new place at the table, Filmer was
alone in the room, but still arguing.

"No use you creating all this wham-bang," Gentry said. "Ladies on they
way upstairs; so why waste you vigor hollering 'Li'l Antoinette Fry!
Li'l Antoinette Fry! Li'l Antoinette----'"

"You be silent!" The command was haughty. "You've commenced shoving
yourself forward as a favorite character around here; but there are
subjects I'll see you learn to hold your tongue on!" Then, as Gentry
couldn't repress open laughter, Filmer became sterner. "You expect me to
submit to my private affairs getting intruded into by every mere splotch
of ignorance? You'd better learn to----"

"Who's that, Filmer honey?" the soft voice of Henrietta Pellar inquired,
as she came in and took the place Gentry had prepared for her. "Who's a
mere splotch of ignorance? You weren't talking about me because I'm such
a bad late little sleepyhead, were you? No, I know you got too much
chivalry--a young man that'd get his ear all bundled up that way just to
please his heart's best darling."

Filmer, who hadn't eaten much so far and wished to eat more,
nevertheless rose. "Who's been talking to you?" he asked, placing as
much restraint as he could upon himself because she was a guest in the
house. "Who's been gibble-gabbling about me and----"

"Why, nobody but just some little bright-eyed hummingbirds, Filmer
honey. Just some I met on the stairway as I was coming down. Of course
upstairs in my room I _did_ hear somebody down here kind of whooping and
carrying-on and squealing 'Little Antoinette Fry! Little Antoinette Fry!
Little Antoinette Fry!'" Henrietta laughed in the friendliest way. "How
little _is_ this little Antoinette Fry, Filmer boysy?"

"Listen," Filmer began. "If this crazy gossip's----"

"Now, Filmer honey!" Henrietta's friendly laughter was continued. "Dint
I just ask you how little your little Antoinette is? Why don't you take
the answer from Orlando in Shakespeare and tell me she's just as high as
your heart?"

"I don't care to," Filmer said. "I don't care to take any answer from
any Orlando in Shakespeare, thank you courteously!"

"Filmer boysy?" Henrietta looked up at him, not laughing. "Who been
abusing you so hard? You sit right down and finish your breakfast and
tell Henrietta. Tell Henrietta."

Filmer gulped and sat. "Well--everybody around here's such a
dumbunny----"

"_Course_ they are, honey," the goodhearted Henrietta said. "Everybody
but just you and me. What business you going to follow when you get out
o' college, Filmer? What you most like to be in this world? Tell
Henrietta."

Filmer didn't know but told her anyhow; he believed that at last he'd
found one grown person who thought he was worth listening to. Some of
the things he said came near throwing the intelligent Henrietta into a
fit, so she later informed Goody; but she was doing her good deed for
the day and gave Filmer a soothing hour.




CHAPTER XVIII


Everybody in the house loved Henrietta, except Ripley Little. It's
difficult to love anybody with whom one must be always wary for fear of
being entrapped into making a purchase directly against one's better
judgment; it's also contrary to nature--nature in a middle-aged man--to
experience a warm affection for a person whose presence in a house makes
any night's sleep never to be counted upon.

"You swore to me 'over the Fourth'," Little said to his wife. "What's
'over' mean? The Fourth's over, isn't it? It's been over several whole
days and nights, at least according to my calendar."

"But, darling," she protested, "of course Goody has to give her a _real_
party. That won't be till Thursday and---- Now, wait, Ripley! I know you
were rather disturbed last night again; but it wasn't nearly so long as
the night before and Goody always tries her best to make them
considerate of you and quiet and----"

"Thursday!" he interrupted. "That's to be the 'real party', is it?
Thursday! And now between nights of the Hellespont broke loose and days
of not being able to enter my own house except like a sneak thief----"

"What for?" Mrs. Little asked, and, reddening a little, added timidly,
"Of course, Ripley, they'd hardly be home at all, and so the boys
wouldn't be round much either if--if we only had another car, one that
Goody could use----"

"Well, dobdab!" With eyes threatening to become both protuberant and
bloodshot, he stared at her. "That's a wife!" he said, and stalked out
of the room.

However, he lived through two more days and nights identical with those
he'd predicted, though he several times told Mrs. Little he couldn't.
During Goody's "real party" he was not present; but he heard the latter
end of it when he arrived after the long and annoying poker game he'd
joined in town. True, he could congratulate himself upon not having been
much exposed to Henrietta, who was too popular to catch him for another
tte--tte. He had only the briefest of passing glimpses of her until
Saturday morning when she and Goody, having early appointments, once
more appeared at the breakfast table. Then for the first time she had a
chance to call him "Dadda Little" before people. Mrs. Little, Gentry
Poindexter, Filmer and even Cousin Olita looked alarmed; and Goody
spilled coffee from her cup.

"Why, you precious honey darling Dadda Little!" Henrietta cried; and
moved her chair, plate and utensils close to his. "Here you and me
living in the same house day and night and hardly seeing the least
little thing of each other! I bet you think your poor old Henrietta's
mighty neglectful of you. You been grieving, Dadda Little?"

"I----" he said. "I----"

"I bet you have, Dadda Little. So if I keep _on_ neglecting you how'm I
going coax that beautiful new green convertible out of you for Goody?
There's going to be a big change. You and me got to get together, Dadda
Little! Don't you believe I'm going to let these chipper-chapper boys
take all my time and keep us apart. No, suh, from now on you and me
thick as thieves like we started. What you doing?" She fluttered dainty
hands in protest, as he rose. "Where you going? Aren't you going finish
your breakfast, Dadda Little?"

"I've eaten it," Little replied in a strained voice. "It's too bad; but
I've got a great deal of business and----"

"Business, Dadda Little--on _Saturday?_ Don't tell me you gentlemen up
North----"

"Yes; yes, we do," he said. "We have to. You fixed that for us, down
South, last November, and now Hitler's doing the rest. Good-by!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

On Sunday, having slept late into the morning, he breakfasted in bed;
then rose, and, looking long in the mirror after he'd shaved, thought he
found his face much altered. He dressed and walked heavily into his
wife's room.

Yawning frequently, she was seated before her dressing-table, completing
a languid arrangement of her hair. "I hope you----" she began; then
changed this approach. "I mean you really _must_ have got _some_ sleep
after they left, Ripley dear."

"Take a look at me," he said. "Just take one look if you want to see
what young people's happiness can do to a man. Kindly note the black
circles under my eyes. See any signs of my cheeks beginning to sag?
They're there, all right. Oh, yes--a few, a few! Put all these nights
I've been going through on top of all the fighting with you and Goody
about buying a jabjam new jobjam automobile----"

"But, Ripley, I've hardly said a word----"

"Oh, no, not a word! Here we're supposed to save gasoline and cut out
new cars, for Defense, and yet----"

"But, Ripley, other people are buying 'em and the factories are
still----"

"There it is," he said. "You still claim you haven't spoken a word for a
new car? You're wearing me down between you, wearing me down. Are you
_sure_ she's going home tomorrow? Will you take your oath she is?"

"Why, Ripley, of course she is, dear. And you needn't worry about lunch
today because they've already gone over to Cuckoo and Scr--I mean
Patricia and Eunice's and----" She interrupted herself hurriedly. "Look
out! Don't sit on the bed, Ripley! Goody left Pussy with me and he's
under there."

"Job jammit," Little said wearily, as he left the room. "Don't you
suppose I can hear him?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

...It was his habit on Sunday afternoons, when the weather was
pleasant, to smoke a cigar after lunch in a bosky nook upon the border
of the lawn. Here a clustering of shrubberies sheltered from the
observation of neighbors a comfortably cushioned wicker chair under a
striped umbrella. As usual, he went to this chair today, at about two
o'clock; and he smoked half of his cigar before a deepening drowsiness
caused it to fall from his relaxed fingers to the turf. Much lost
slumber made its demands upon him and for two hours he slept heavily and
audibly. He was still at it when the young people arrived.

They came on foot, chattering but not whooping--two lovely girls and
seven lumbering boys--and they walked from the driveway gates almost to
the house without waking him. Henrietta Pellar, dancing ahead,
twittering a swing-song, suddenly stood still and held up a finger for
silence.

"Halt, childses!" she said. "Stop and hush. Listen. Oh, my me, what _is_
that funny noise?"

Goody pointed to the shrubberied nook; though from where they stood
nothing could be seen of it except the bushes. "It's only Father," she
said. "He's asleep."

"Goody, I don't believe it!" Henrietta's eyes enlarged in wonder. "One
person alone couldn't; he must have friends with him." She advanced,
tiptoeing, and the others followed. In a moment she paused, and so did
they, for Ripley Little in his chair was fully disclosed to them, and
the noises he made were disquieting. "Goody, I don't believe poor Dadda
Little's just simply asleep," Henrietta said, after a short
reconnaissance. "Why, just _listen!_ Doesn't part of it sound like he's
choking and kind of strangling? Do you think he could be maybe
unconscious and kind of trying to call for somebody to rouse him? He
doesn't _look_ right, either; that's no natural slumber. I declare I
think you better get some ammonia, Goody, or just water if it's quicker,
and try if we can't----"

"I wouldn't," one of the boys, a near neighbor, said uneasily. "Honest,
I wouldn't. It'll be a lot better if we just let him stay the way he is
and go in the house. We better----"

"No indeedy!" the largehearted Henrietta cried. "I just _know_ that's no
natural sleep." She stepped forward, calling: "Dadda Little! Dadda----"

"Don't!" Goody interrupted her earnestly. "Henrietta, don't! Nobody
knows what----"

Henrietta was already beside Little's chair; she put a pretty hand upon
his forehead. "Dadda Little, are you sick? Dadda Little!"

Little's mouth closed. He opened it again to say "_Buh!_" then opened
his eyes, too. He looked glazedly at the anxious and tender young face
close to his, not recognizing it. "Who?" he asked. "Whuh--what----"
Comprehension came into his slowly widening gaze; his whole countenance
spasmodically reshaped itself, returned to the normal, and he knew
Henrietta. "My dob!" he said.

"Goodness, Dadda Little! You frightened me!" Henrietta cried, and,
impulsive in her moment of relief, jumped affectionately upon his lap.

"Here!" Little gasped. "Look here!"

Henrietta waved an arch hand at the group of staring, incredulous young
people. "Go on away, you all! Dadda Little and me, we going to have a
nice talk together. We----"

"Here!" Little said. "Get off! Listen! Get----"

"No, you don't, Dadda Little!" Retaining her seat, though he made
efforts to rise, she put her hands upon his shoulders and laughingly
pushed him back. "Dadda Little, if I didn't know better I might almost
think you been keeping out o' my way on purpose lately. You don't want
poor little Henrietta to believe _that_, do you? No, suh; now I got you,
we going have a good long chipper-chapper!" Again she waved coquetishly
to the others. "Listen, you prying childses, haven't you got any
manners? How often I got to tell you go on away?"

Fascinated, they didn't even consider her suggestion. Over her shoulder
Little saw seven staring male faces, not one of which he'd ever thought
an agreeable sight, even under the best circumstances. Worse, he saw the
charming face of his daughter; it was flushed, and his gorge rose with
the perception that she was trying not to laugh.

"Here!" he said angrily. "Let me up!"

"Sit still, Dadda Little." Henrietta's voice was the dove's. "You don't
want your dear little adopted daughter to travel all the way home
tomorrow on the smoky old steam-cars, getting cinders in her poor little
eyes, crying all the way--pretty near two hundred miles--do you? Crying
what about? _You_ know, Dadda Little! Because you dint let poor
Henrietta persuade you to buy that whizzy new green convertible for
Goody. _Now_ aren't you going to promise you'll----"

"No, I jabjam certainly----"

"Yes, you _is_, Dadda Little!" The laughing Henrietta pressed her cheek
to his, and for the briefest instant glanced up questioningly from under
her soft lashes at the absorbed male watchers. "How'd you like to be
Dadda Little?" this glance really asked; but it was only a by-product.
"Say yes this minute!" Henrietta cried. "Dadda Little, I swear to my
goodness I'm never going stir one inch till you do! If it takes a year
and no matter what fuss my parents make about my not coming home, I'm
going sit right here till you say yes!" She leaned back, wooing him with
the gaze of a young fawn. "You going say yes, Dadda Little?"

"No, I'm not!" he shouted, and desperately took advantage of her relaxed
position to struggle to his feet; though he remembered to be at least
gentleman enough to save her from falling. "Excuse me, job jammit!" he
said, and stalked across the lawn.

His face burned and he realized infuriatedly that the back of his neck,
also of fiery aspect, was found interesting by all of the curious young
eyes that followed him as he went toward the house. Henrietta,
incorrigibly intrepid, was calling to him to _please_ come back, Dadda
Little; but, making no response except to breathe harder, he entered the
front door and stamped up the stairs to his own room. There, alone, he
spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes in a preoccupation with
self-expressive utterances and gestures.

A lovely young voice calling, "Pussy! Here, Pussy, Pussy!" came to his
still scorching ears, and, though revolted, he could not resist his
impulse to look out of the window. On the lawn below was Henrietta.
Surrounded by doting boys, she had captured Pussy and, seated upon the
grass, held him in her arms. "Angel Pussy-wussy!" she said, with her
cheek upon his unwilling head. "Don't Pussy love its Auntie Henrietta?"
Then from under soft eyelashes there was just a flicker of an upward
glance at her audience to see how much they wished that they were Pussy.

Pussy, trying to release himself, was as reluctant to be used in that
manner as his predecessor had been. Pussy unaffectedly didn't care to be
the object of Henrietta's coquetries. In fact, both Pussy and Mr. Little
felt jab jammed embarrassed while receiving them, whether they were
employed for the amorous provocation of onlookers or not.

A popular modern interpretation of our behavior is that it's in great
part directly contrary to our true natures; thus many might believe that
Ripley Little and Pussy, fondly petted by a beautiful young girl, really
liked the experience. They did not. Neither had any tortuous
self-suppressions, and both were accustomed to expressing their
subconsciouses with sincerity; nor did the similarity between them end
there--nor did Ripley Little's startled comprehension of it. He
perceived that in relation to Henrietta he was in precisely the same
class with Pussy. This does not mean that he wished to be more to
Henrietta than Pussy was; it means that his temper wasn't improved by
being classed with Pussy in his own house. Also, he didn't see how he
could be called Dadda Little any more and retain his sanity.

Mrs. Little, occupied with a peaceable book in the living-room below,
heard him clumping down the stairs, and, accustomed to footstep-reading,
put down the book and murmured, "Oh, my!"

He came in, already talking. "Hot dabble it, Wilma, you took your oath
she'd go home tomorrow! You took----"

"Now, Ripley! Please don't let yourself get so ex----"

"Listen, Mrs. Little! She said a while ago she was going to stay right
where she was till----"

"Right where she was, Ripley? You mean she meant she'd stay----"

"Right here!" he said furiously. "She means she's going to keep _on_
visiting us. She means she'll stay here till I'm worn down and badgered
into buying that jam bastinadoed hot dabbled convertible Hanson's been
trying to sell me. Get it!"

"What?" Mrs. Little jumped up. "You say----"

"Get it!" Little shouted. "Call up Hanson. It's Sunday; but call him up.
Tell him my spirit's broken! Tell him I'm licked! Tell him we'll take
it!"

"Why, Ripley!" Mrs. Little's face was suffused with pleasure. "Why,
Ripley dear----"

"Get it!" he shouted again, and stamped out and up the stairs,
jab-jamming himself every step of the way to his own room.




CHAPTER XIX


The flowered and candied departure of dear little Henrietta Pellar was
succeeded by a lull, whole July days and nights long, a time of peace
and politeness in the Little family. Goody laughed and sang about the
house, even when her father was in it, was considerate of every lightest
wish of his, or at least careful; and, struggling with himself, he
self-protectively repressed many impulses to tell her what he thought
about Norman Peel. She and Mrs. Little were both happy with the new car,
though Mrs. Little seldom had more than a matutinal use of it, and
Filmer, after a few orations upon the public and private injustice
exemplified in that girl's practically owning and always driving a
machine of which he should and could be the master, seemed to be trying
to do better generally--at least, so his mother pointed out to the
others.

It wasn't quite true: Filmer wasn't trying to do better generally; he
was only more preoccupied with something that he had on his mind. For a
clear comprehension of what he had on his mind a slightly elaborated
consideration of him at this special period may be helpful.

Being his age, he naturally desired all human society to regard him as
indifferent to its opinion of him. His height was five feet and an inch;
he weighed a hundred and four pounds; and his face in repose was what is
called appealing; but he wished everybody--including strangers who saw
him momentarily--to think him the most hard-boiled person alive.
Although the jumpiest of girls couldn't have been much more sensitive,
this hard-boiled impression was what he dearly, dearly wished to create.

At home his sensitiveness, though often noisy, was less acute than
elsewhere; at home, like a bird made secure by its own protective
coloration, he often had such callousness to criticism of himself as to
be unaware of it. The members of his family were not, so to speak, his
Group; to criticism from his Group he was as sensitive as a cat to flung
water. For Antoinette Fry and her circle, for their standards of taste,
Filmer ordered the conduct of his life, the look and manner of his dress
and the operation of his facial expressions.

When his family criticized his Group he was indignant; but when the
Voice of his Group (that is to say, Antoinette) criticized his family he
felt disgraced. When Antoinette said, "I wonder why your sister wears
that goopy blue blouse so much; it looks like the Gay Nineties," Filmer
didn't pause to realize that Antoinette wasn't an authority on that
period, her mother having been born subsequent to it. No, he hurried
home to entreat Mrs. Little to do something about Goody's awful clothes.
"Why can't she dress like the right people?" he asked; and Mrs. Little
would have lapsed into a mental prostration if she'd understood that he
meant Antoinette Fry.

Filmer's sensitiveness wasn't unique, of course. Mrs. Little was pleased
with the new car on Goody's account but also because Mrs. Watson, next
door, often saw it waiting in the Littles' driveway; and one reason
Ripley Little hadn't wished to buy a new one was that the daughter of T.
A. Jafford of the Jafford Trust Company drove a four-year-old Ford.

Mrs. Little, Goody and Filmer would have thought Ripley Little
inexplicable if they'd known he cared what any such mummy as Mr. T. A.
Jafford would think; and Ripley Little, Goody and Filmer would have
believed Mrs. Little touched in the head had they suspected that she
gave a thought to Mrs. Watson--and if Mr. and Mrs. Little and Goody had
dreamed that Filmer was glad to have a new car in "the family" because
of the effect upon little Antoinette Fry and four or five other
children, they'd have thought the hoped-for blossoming of his
intelligence postponed again, probably permanently. In such matters,
Mother Nature may be hinting that nobody's sensitiveness is worth a dime
to anybody else, and all of it, therefore, ought to be abandoned;
nevertheless Filmer had a right, as it were, to his own, and his was
usually harder on him than that of his elders was on them.

Thus, not only his ambition to seem hard-boiled, whether or not he could
actually be so, but the specific sensitivity to Group opinion must be
well remembered if his mid-July activities--and what was then on his
mind--are to be understood. The Annual Welfare Fund American Costume
Fair, a high occasion of the summer, was near; and Filmer's plan for
making a public appearance there was what preoccupied him so weightily.
These plans were private; he looked upon questions about them as
intrusive, though he retained the right to know and criticize those of
the ladies of his family, since theirs might be detrimental to him.

"What I'm going as," he said, two days before the Fair, "it's whose
business?" He addressed Cousin Olita, who'd brought some sewing to one
of the canvas chairs upon the lawn after lunch. Goody reclined
gracefully near by, and Filmer sat upon the grass with his back against
a tree. "It's whose business?" he repeated. "Mine or this whole
gossiping neighborhood? Reply, please."

Cousin Olita, however, had become interested in something else. Upon the
shady sidewalk, a neat figure topped with the twin glitters of a pair of
spectacles moved distantly into her view but not into that of Filmer;
his back was toward these tokens that Norman Peel was approaching.
"Filmer," Goody said suddenly, "this morning Cousin Olita gave me that
water pistol she bought to scare dogs with when she takes Pussy walking
and----"

"She did?" Filmer was roused. "Listen! Cousin Olita, you said if you
ever gave that water pistol away I could have it. You promised me----"

"You can," Goody said surprisingly. "You can have it right now, Filmer,
if you care to look for it. I left it somewhere--probably in Father's
room, I think----"

"Boy!" Filmer hurried indoors, ran upstairs to his father's room, and,
after several diligent minutes, found the water pistol upon a closet
shelf. "Boy!" Filmer said; for the water pistol, superficially, looked
very like a lethal one and was a necessary part of his planning for the
Annual Welfare Fund American Costume Fair. Then he happened to glance
out of a window and was astonished to see Goody, accompanied by Norman
Peel, gliding out of the driveway in the new car.

"Oh, murder!" Filmer sighed. The car's top was down, and Goody not only
wore the blue blouse but turned northward, making it certain that if
Antoinette Fry was in her front yard, or at a window, her opinion of
Filmer for having a Gay Nineties sister would again be lowered.

He put the pistol in a hip-pocket and returned to the open, gloomy.

Cousin Olita, sewing, laughed. "Thought you'd fall for it," she said.

"Thought I'd fall for what?"

"For the water pistol, Filmer. Goody got me to give it to her this
morning and she put it in your father's room where she thought you'd be
some little time finding it--because of course she didn't want you
upsetting _her_ room. Then she told you about it exactly when she'd
planned to, just when Norman Peel----"

Filmer didn't understand. "What's all this gibble-gabble?"

"I'm sure it isn't your face, Filmer," Cousin Olita explained in a
kindly way. "I think all it is, Norman Peel's very critical, of
course--you remember about the gable and changing the fence for a
hedge--and probably he's lately just happened to say something to Goody
about he wonders why you wear that old jersey inside out so much with
the '44' on the back and these balloony purplish trousers you seem so
fond of and----"

"What?" Filmer couldn't believe that she was saying what she was saying.
"Are you trying to----"

"Yes, it'd be more your clothes than anything else, I think, Filmer.
Maybe, too, a little that habit you have of half shutting your eyes and
looking sideways and chewing whether you've got anything in your mouth
or not. You see, Filmer dear, Goody's _so_ sensitive, especially about
any of her family."

"Listen!" Filmer stepped toward her. "Listen!"

"She was _so_ pleased," Cousin Olita said, busy with her sewing. "She
was afraid you might be around and she planned it just right. He didn't
see you at all."

"Didn't _see_ me?" Filmer's mind wrestled with bafflements; then he
laughed jeeringly. "Didn't see me; that's a good one! Your bean's
slipping; she was afraid I'd maybe say a few things about Ham Ellers
just to cheer 'em up. Nurse the bean, Cousin Olita; nurse the bean.
Anyhow, I got the gat."

Cousin Olita, dreamy, changed the subject. "I wonder if you really
understand about the Fair, Filmer--how it's to help show this is a
wonderful country of ours and we're expected to dress in American
history costumes and be American types and keep on acting that way, too,
in character, after we get there. It'll be a beautiful sight on the
four-acre front lawn of the Mr. and Mrs. Eric Homer Smith Estate and
we're all requested not to scuff up the grass. Filmer, I think it'd be
nice if you went as a young American boy of the Seventies with a wide
collar rolling a hoop. I'm making myself a costume. I'm going as Mary
Queen of Scots. I'm not like you; I'll tell anybody."

"Hoop?" Filmer said, with pain. "I'm not rolling any hoop, thank you a
thousand times, and you can't be Mary Queen of Scots. When was she ever
in America? After she got her head cut off?"

"No; she couldn't," Cousin Olita replied. "Don't be ignorant, Filmer.
She's connected with the history of this country of ours because her
great-grandson gave Pennsylvania to William Penn, and I think Charleston
must be named for one of her family. She's my favorite character in all
of history."

Filmer, thinking of what Antoinette Fry would be sure to think, made
heated gestures. "Mary Queen of Scots wasn't supposed to weigh a hundred
and sixty-four pounds or something, was she? Can't you ever stop and
think a minute, Cousin Olita? Look, you're supposed to be my cousin and
if you go to the Welfare Fund American Costume Fair as Mary Queen of
Scots, I and this whole family----"

"Yes, Goody was talking like that, too," Cousin Olita said peacefully.
"She's going as some kind of a dolly herself and----"

"What! A dolly? What's any dolly got to do with American history?"
Filmer was in despair. "If I haven't got the battiest family----"

His remonstrances reached nowhere with sunny Cousin Olita, and that
evening he took his troubles to his mother; spoke tragically of Mary
Queen of Scots and dollies. He went to the length of declaring that
rather than be publicly ruined by relatives he'd remain away from the
Welfare Fund American Costume Fair; he'd give up the whole business, he
said.

Mrs. Little encouraged him to feel better. Goody was having a lovely
costume made to wear as Dolly Madison, and probably Cousin Olita could
be talked out of Mary Queen of Scots. In the meantime, what American
historical character had Filmer in mind to impersonate? Surely he needed
help about his costume, didn't he?

He declined the offer and refused to give information. "You'll see when
the time comes," he said reservedly. "I've got a pretty big idea,
Mother."

Then, before he went to bed, he gave himself a preview of his pretty big
idea in the small mirror of his dressing-table. With a piece of burnt
cork he depicted upon his cheeks, just forward of the rather noticeable
ears, a pair of curved sideburns, typical as he believed of the American
criminal most prone to massacre. Next he blackened his slight eyebrows,
made black half moons beneath his eyes to indicate the ravages of night
life, and drew two sinister lines from the sides of his nose to the
corners of his mouth. After that, he put on an old jacket, turned up the
collar, took from his clothes closet a heavy old cap of his father's and
placed it upon his head.

The cap was too large for him and, pulled down, added to a winged look
of Filmer's sometimes mentioned by his young friends when speaking of
his ears; but this wasn't how he viewed the matter, himself. Not at all;
and, though literal-minded people might perhaps have guessed that he was
impersonating a mushroom, the mirror pleased him exceedingly. He
clutched the water pistol, crouched, thrust his lower lip and
inoffensive chin as far forward as their controlling muscles permitted,
and spoke in the toughest tones his changing voice could utter.

"Put 'em up! Come out from behind that counter! This is a stick-up,
see?"

Filmer's pretty big idea, in part at least, was to attend the Welfare
Fund American Costume Fair as a national historic figure symbolically
known (to him) as Big Shot, or Public Enemy Number One. There was more
to it than that: "Big Shot" was the gist of it; but in the background of
this conception was a phrase he remembered out of his father's table
conversation, "The Fighting Whitings." There could be Fighting other
people as well as Whitings, couldn't there? Certainly, and Filmer, in
his mind, added this thought to his picture of himself as Big Shot, or
Public Enemy Number One.

Wistful thinking being strongest in youth, Filmer usually believed his
appearance what he hoped it was; his wish controlled his very eyes.
Thus, as he peered into the glass from beneath the visor of the
umbrellalike cap and beheld his sideburns, protruding jaw and blackened
steely eyes, he couldn't help feeling that when he moved ominously among
the throngs at the Fair he'd be about as much of a hit as anybody. He
wouldn't tell a soul, beforehand--most of all not Antoinette. He
intended, so to say, to burst upon her.

In his own room he rehearsed often, and, studiously practising the tough
manner elsewhere, was twice embarrassed by the unsought observation of
his father. "What on earth are you trying to do--look like one of those
enlarged full-page photographs of an insect's face?" Ripley Little
asked, on the second occasion; and turned to his wife. "What's the
matter with him? This morning he was in the hall lavatory, all humped
over, with his jaw dislocated and his underlip looking as if a bee'd
stung it. He was whispering to the looking-glass over the washbowl.
Whispering to it! Right now I saw him doing the same thing to his
reflection in that window. He won't speak. He's gone dead-pan; but have
_you_ any idea what's the matter with him?"

Filmer silently withdrew, and Mrs. Little explained. "It must have
something to do with the historical character he's planning to be at the
Welfare Fund Fair, Ripley. He's keeping it a great secret because he
wants to surprise everybody. Won't let us help him, or even advise him,
about his costume. I can't imagine what he thinks he's going to----"

"Wilkes Booth, likely enough," Little said plaintively. "Maybe
Quisling--or Dillinger. Most probably Dillinger. Well, _I_ don't have to
be there!"

His unfavorable prediction of his son's probable choice, though not a
bad guess, lacked comprehension of Filmer's rebellion against the
commonplace and the threadbare past. To attend the Fair as one of the
Alexander Hamiltons, General Lafayettes, Forty Niners or Roosevelt Rough
Riders sure to be present would have seemed to Filmer a concession to
soft old Gay Ninety ideals--to the pretty, the ignorant and the
sentimental. Ripley Little, moreover, would have been astounded had he
suspected that an utterance of his own, forgotten by himself, was
largely the inspiration of Filmer's present doings.




CHAPTER XX


Another rehearsal, the final one, was also interrupted discomfitingly.
This happened at a last moment, on the afternoon of the Fair, when
already Filmer should have been making his entrance into that
varicolored scene. In full costume, burnt cork and everything, he was
still scowling into his mirror, convinced that Big Shot, Public Enemy
Number One and the rest of it was written all over him; the door opened
and two intruders walked in.

They were his two little second-cousins, Frankie and Francie, dressed
for the Fair as Children of the Civil War Period, or perhaps
thereabouts. They weren't twins but close to each other in age, both
under five, and, though Francie was the boy and Frankie the girl, most
people, including Filmer, seldom knew or cared which was, or who was,
who. Loose in a house, Frankie and Francie were likely to be found
anywhere, for their nurse, Lila, was a scatterminded girl; and Frankie
and Francie, on the prowl just now at the Littles', found Filmer's door
closed. Therefore they opened it and came in.

Seeing Filmer in old clothes and a funny cap, with his ears sticking out
and with what they mistook for dirty marks on his face, they naturally
laughed. When Frankie and Francie laughed they always did so aloud,
meanwhile pointing with curved forefingers at what amused them.

"Ook!" Francie said, thus laughing and pointing. "Cuzzum Filla dirty!
All dirty!"

"Dirty!" Frankie echoed. "Dirty face! Dirty!"

Their childish stupidity irritated Filmer. "Have you got any
intelligence or not?" he asked sternly. Then, as Frankie and Francie
both squatted, apparently to make their laughter more insulting, he
advanced upon them crouchingly and threw open his jacket, displaying the
water pistol secured near his left armpit by a schoolbook strap. Worse,
he protruded his chin and underlip public-enemyly and hissed, "This is a
stick-up, see! See this heater? Scram you! Scram!"

He had more effect than he wished. Francie and Frankie fell backward
upon the floor, screaming with horror. Filmer would have been gratified
except that from downstairs his mother, Cousin Olita and the
scatterminded Lila began to call loudly for information. "Hush, can't
you?" he pleaded with Frankie and Francie. "Look, I'll buy you candy at
the American Fair. Can't you hush up? Candy! _Candy!_ Look, if you'll
hush up I'll buy you candy till you're sick!"

Unstable as the wind, Frankie and Francie stopped crying, rose and
affectionately clung to Filmer. "Canny!" they cried. "Nice canny! Nice
Cuzzum Filla!"

"Let go me!" Filmer said. "Let go me or I'll scare you again!" He
reverted to Big Shot. "Listen! Take your paws off me if you don't want a
slug o' lead through your gizzards, see!"

This time, unaccountably, Frankie and Francie weren't frightened at all
but squealed with fond laughter. "Do some more!" they begged. "Make
funny faces some more, Cuzzum Filla!"

Downstairs Mrs. Little was shouting earnestly. "Filmer! We've been
waiting and waiting for you. Filmer! We're dreadfully late! Do stop
playing with the children. Fil_mer!_"

Filmer appeared at the top of the stairs with Frankie and Francie trying
to cling to his knees. "Playing with 'em?" he said, outraged. "_Playing_
with 'em?"

He descended the stairway with difficulty, as Frankie and Francie wished
to remain attached to him. Near the front door Mrs. Little, Cousin Olita
and Lila waited impatiently; and Filmer didn't like their looks at all.
Mrs. Little, with powdered hair, was supposedly a "Colonial Dame"; and
Cousin Olita, saved from Mary Queen of Scots and also from Pocahontas,
her second choice, wore black sateen with a white cap and white ruff.
Thus she now rather strangely regarded herself as "A Puritan Priscilla",
though she regretted having consented, after an argument with Goody, to
remove a large scarlet A from her front. Lila was dressed simply as a
children's nurse, and this added to Filmer's distress.

"Look at Lila," he said to his mother. "What's she going as? You aren't
asking me to----"

"Yes, dear," Mrs. Little interrupted hurriedly. "Cousin Lydia has a
sudden cold; but she simply couldn't disappoint the children, so of
course I said we'd take them. Lila's all right. A great many of the
people aren't going to be in costume; they're supposed to walk around
and look at the rest of us that are. Do let's get off, Filmer. Goody
left an hour ago; but your father took the bus and left us the other
car, so do----"

Cousin Olita spoke up urgently. "Filmer, is that black on your face part
of your costume? I hope so, because if we have to wait till you go and
wash----"

"_Sh!_" Mrs. Little warned her, aside. "It must be intended for make-up.
I think he means----"

"Do you ever read the papers?" Filmer asked Cousin Olita, and with a
significant gesture showed her the water pistol under his left armpit.
"There! Big Shot, Public Enemy Number One, Torpedo, see--if you got to
be told everything in words of one syllable."

"It's splendid, Filmer; do let's get off," his mother said, and
placatively hustled the party of six outdoors and into the car.

Mrs. Little drove; Cousin Olita sat beside her, and on the back seat
Frankie and Francie were placed between Filmer and Lila. Almost
immediately Frankie and Francie began to have a fight. They poked each
other, kicked each other, bit a little and squealed words unintelligible
to Filmer.

"They're mad at each other again," Lila explained. "Frankie's mad at
Francie because he's sitting next to you and she wants to, too."

Frankie wept piercingly, pounded Francie, climbed over him and sat
clingingly upon Filmer's lap; but Filmer didn't like to have people
there any better than his father did. "Here!" he said, attempting to
dislodge her. "Get away!"

Cousin Olita looked over her shoulder. "No, no, Filmer. Let her stay;
she makes such terrible noises when you----"

"Listen!" Filmer said. "Whether you've got brains enough to see it or
not, I'm supposed to be Big Shot or Public Enemy Number One. What kind
of a Big Shot would a Big Shot be with a gummy three-year-old child all
over him? If you think I'm going to drive into the grounds of the Eric
Homer Smith Estate with Frankie or Francie, whichever it is, sitting on
me---- Get away, will you?"

"Canny!" Francie said, and also clambered upon Filmer's lap. "Nice
Filla! I wuv you!"

Big Shot, or Public Enemy Number One, was driven into the Eric Homer
Smith Estate with Francie and Frankie both on his lap, or partly so, and
each trying to help him push the other off of it.

When the car found the last parking space in the enclosure allotted to
automobiles containing people in costume, Filmer lived up well to the
character he'd assumed. He didn't help anybody out; but, having
determinedly shoved Frankie and Francie upon Lila, shot huntedly forth,
slid between bordering shrubberies and emerged, successfully alone, upon
the lively lawn. "Bums!" he muttered, alluding to Frankie and Francie.

Opposite him, across the broad stretch of turf, a uniformed brass band
blatted and thumped upliftingly, and the music made him feel dramatic.
Flanking the band were gay semicircles of booths attended by salesladies
dressed patriotically, and upon the lawn some hundreds of people
strolled or paused in groups, while others made benevolent purchases at
the booths. About a third were in costume and all of the Colonial Dames,
Puritan Priscillas and Children of the Civil War Period that Filmer saw
seemed to him incomparably superior to his mother, Cousin Olita and
Frankie and Francie. He caught a glimpse of Goody, too, behind the Red,
White and Blue counter of one of the booths, and he thought she looked
disgracing; there wasn't a doubt that Antoinette Fry'd be critical of
her. Resolving to keep far away from all of his relatives, he pulled the
cap visor a little more over his eyes, stooped crouchingly, thrust out
his innocent chin, and with a sinister air began to slink hither and yon
among the crowds.

In planning the Fair, enthusiasts had said much about living up to the
costumes, and acting the types assumed, for the benefit of the
uncostumed patrons; but after a time the efforts made in this direction
were generally abandoned. Even Cousin Olita gave up going about chattily
in her Puritan manner, though only by request: Goody hurried out from
her booth for the purpose after being told by a friend that Cousin
Olita'd said to him, "Prithee I bet it's going to rain, Mr. Ellers."
Filmer was one of the few who conscientiously went on being the
historical types they believed they represented.

Stooping, jaw and lip forward no matter how they ached, never lifting
his narrowed eyes higher than people's shoulders, he went round and
round the lawn, sometimes twitching back his jacket for a flash of the
water pistol, and at intervals whispering, "Line up! This is a stick-up,
see? Line up!"

Innumerable eyes seemed to be upon him and everybody to be thinking
about him concentratedly; these were his sensations. No doubt his mind
was a little vague upon the point of a general clear recognition of him
as Big Shot, or Public Enemy Number One; but he was sure that the more
intelligent spectators, unlike Cousin Olita, must see in him something
very like it--at least a chief figure from the fighting hell of the
underworld. To go about saying, "Look, who do you think I am?" and
"Listen, I'm Big Shot, or Public Enemy Number One, Torpedo, see?" would
have been a banality and a lowering. Antoinette Fry would understand who
he was--so he believed perhaps a little mystically.

What he most counted upon, of course, was her astonished admiration and
that of his whole Group. For some time his carefully narrowed and
averted eyes, hampered by the overwhelming cap, didn't discover any of
its members; but he felt that they must be looking at him from
_some_where--especially that Antoinette, thrilled, must be watching him.
The stirring drums and trumpetings of the band, continuing, made him
feel heroic, singled out from the world; then, abruptly, he was somewhat
let down. He bumped into Charlsworth Beck, who was dressed in an extinct
military uniform.

"Yay, Filmer!" Charlsworth said. "Look, I'm supposed to be General W. H.
Harrison in the War of Eighteen-twelve, afterwards President. My father
wore 'em at the military academy he went to. Pretty hot, what?" He
laughed fatuously. "Bill's only got a false face; says he's John L.
Lewis. And Slops is just a gob in a sailor suit. Not so good! All these
brass buttons and sword and chin strap o' mine--you ought to've seen
their eyes pop! What you supposed to be, Filmer--kind of a gangster or
something?"

"'_Kind_ of?'" Filmer echoed scornfully. "Thought you had brains! Use
your eyes, can't you?"

"General W. H. Harrison was a pretty great man," Charlsworth said; "but
he certainly couldn't have minded warm weather much." He glanced about
to see who was looking at him. "Well, sir, I tell you, Fil, these white
gloves and sword and everything may be the cats; but they're certainly
kind of warm to wear in the hot sun. Antoinette and Ellie and Bill and
Slops are over yonder at the Ice Cream Booth eating cones. Let's go get
us some."

"Don't want 'ny!" Annoyed by this friend, who seemed to be thinking of
nothing except his dumb self and his ill-fitting uniform, Filmer went on
his way. He guardedly allowed his glance, however, to wander in the
direction of the Ice Cream Booth, and presently his stealthy criminal
stride took him in that direction.

Antoinette and Ellie Turner were both Pocahontases or Indian Maidens or
something; and Antoinette had seized the opportunity to mascara her
eye-winkers stickily. She looked so gloriously Hollywoodish that she
brought on a ringing in Filmer's ears. He made a circuit and came back,
crossing the grass in a direction that would give her a rather close
view of him in profile as he passed.

Marringly, it was just then that Frankie and Francie got him again.
They'd long ago shaken off Lila and they'd been hunting and hunting him.

"_Canny!_" shouted both little Civil War Children, and rushed for him.
"_Nice_ Cuzzum Filla! Canny! Canny! _Canny!_"

He made a pitiable attempt to seem to ignore them. "Get away from me!"
he said, from the side of his mouth. "Get away from me, you guys!" The
harsh undertones were ineffective; Frankie and Francie embraced his legs
happily and demandingly. He tried a desperate kind of reasonableness.
"Listen! Wait till after a while, can't you, and I'll buy you some.
Listen, don't be such bums! Can't you even _try_ to understand who I
_am?_ Look, if you keep on----"

"You p'omised!" Francie reminded him; and both squealed, "_Canny! Canny!
Canny!_"

Agonized, Filmer turned to the Candy Booth close by, and, feeling
himself scorched by the gaze of Antoinette, Ellie Turner, Bill, Slops,
and Charlsworth Beck, he bought Frankie and Francie two paper bags of
candy, twenty-five cents each. "There! Eat it!" he said, and, hopeful
too soon, thought himself free to leave the candy counter unaccompanied.

He'd not gone three strides before Frankie and Francie, already
obediently eating, each had him by a hand. "I _wuv_ you, Cuzzum Filla!"
Frankie said. "_Nice_ Cuzzum Filla!" said Francie.

"Go _'way!_" But as fast as Filmer released his hands Francie and
Frankie, delighted with the game, clasped him fondly by the legs.
"Anyways for Sweet Mike's sake come away from _here!_" he begged, and,
ruthless with them, dragged them from the near vicinity of those whose
opinion was life and death. "Listen! I _bought_ you the candy, didn't I?
You've _got_ it, haven't you? Now _can't_ you----"

Francie, clinging stickily to his right hand, again told him that he was
nice, and Frankie, affixed to his left, once more announced that she
loved him. Then they began to have another fight. Nobody understood why
Frankie and Francie had so many fights, and they never coherently
explained; but the reason was that Frankie always thought that whatever
Francie had was better than what she had, herself, and she wanted it,
while Francie felt the same way about whatever Frankie had. Just now,
Frankie wanted Francie's candy and her own too, and Francie wanted
Frankie's and his own too. If they'd been older they'd have exchanged
bags and probably regretted it; the trouble was, they weren't older.

Retaining Filmer's hands, they kicked each other before him and behind
him, sometimes severely. Weeping unattractively with filled mouths
entirely open, they put themselves to the utmost inconvenience to tear
holes in each other's bags, snatched therefrom, and kicked, slapped,
shed tears and ate simultaneously. They got themselves smeared and
sticky all over, did much of that for Filmer too.

Their passion so grew that physically he became able to leave them; but,
observed by many, he had to accept a moral responsibility. Wishing that
Frankie and Francie had killed each other good and dead in the car or in
any previous fight, he had to act as peacemaker, revolting as the role
was to him.

Frankie and Francie, having gone into a clinch with their candy bags
between them, got him and themselves more smeared and sticky; then all
at once, because they'd had enough fighting for the time being, they
were placid again. "You're nice, Cuzzum Filla," Francie said, eating.
"Make funny faces."

"Ess," said Frankie. "I _wuv_ you, Cuzzum Filla. Make funny faces."

Even if he'd been alone, Filmer no longer had the heart to advance his
jaw, not even to walk crouchingly. What good would either have been now?
"Come on," he said, beaten. "We got to find that crazy darn Lila."

"Crazy darn Lila!" Frankie and Francie cried, accompanying him. "Crazy
darn Lila! Crazy darn Lila!"

Doggedly Filmer sought and sought for Lila, but finally found his
mother, instead; for she, as it happened, was looking for him. As he
came to a halt before her, Francie sat down on the grass in order to use
both hands for eating more busily. Frankie did likewise, and both, as
they ate, leaned back trustingly against Filmer's legs.

"Filmer!" Mrs. Little said. "Really, dear, you oughtn't to let the
children devour all that cheap donated candy; they'll be sick. Why
didn't you leave them with Lila?"

"Why didn't I? Why didn't I leave 'em with Lila?" Then Filmer just
looked at her.

"What's the matter, dear?"

"They fixed me," he said, referring swallowingly to the candy-eaters at
his feet. "They fixed me!"




CHAPTER XXI


"Nonsense, dear!" The mother perceived the tokens of a collapsed morale;
she comprehended. The lines from Filmer's nose to his mouth, the dark
crescents under his eyes, the sideburns and the blackened eyebrows
appeared to other people as an ill-chosen exhibition of burnt cork on
the face of a harmless young lad; but Filmer, seeing himself as his
realized design, was not only artist but the work of art, too--and both
were ruined by the ignorant hands of Frankie and Francie. Mrs. Little
offered a new hope. "You just wait till you hear why I've been looking
for you!" she exclaimed. "Filmer, the _Morning News_ is going to have a
whole page of photographs of the Fair in tomorrow's paper and the
photographer wants to take a picture of _you!_"

"What!" Filmer's chest found air again; he stepped forward, removing his
support of Frankie and Francie. "Honest? He does?"

Life at almost fifteen is like the Stock Exchange, of which experts have
announced that there is only one certainty: it goes up and it goes down.
Filmer, having been down, made a new high for the season.

"Yes; he's waiting for you, Filmer."

"Well, my goodness!" Filmer said. "Where is he?" He stopped short as
Frankie and Francie rose lovingly to accompany him. "Listen! If those
bums think they're going to be in the newspaper with me----"

"No, no." Mrs. Little laughed, and called over her shoulder, "Lila!"

The laggard nurse joined them, and, herself eating candy, seized upon
Frankie and Francie. They were left behind, having a fight with crazy
darn Lila, thus naming her, while Mrs. Little took Filmer to a garden
bench upon which Cousin Olita was sitting elegantly. Before Cousin Olita
stood a middle-aged man with a camera and a tired young woman writing in
a notebook.

"What's Cousin Olita doing?" Filmer asked his mother. "Does she think
any _good_ newspaper would----"

"They want us in a little group of three, dear," Mrs. Little explained.
"You see, they've already done several of Goody because she's been
awarded the Grand Prize for the most becoming costume and----"

"What? You say _Goody_----"

"Yes; it's a medal on a blue ribbon. Isn't that splendid! So now they
want the rest of the family, too." She placed herself beside Cousin
Olita on the bench. "You're to stand just behind us, Filmer, for a nice
composition. Take your place, dear; we ought to be moving toward home
pretty soon."

The implication that he was to be photographed because of Goody's prize
somewhat dampened Filmer; and he didn't at all care to share the honor
with Cousin Olita. Nevertheless, his picture was to be in the paper, a
distinction never hitherto conferred upon him, or, to the best of his
knowledge, upon any other of his Group, not even Antoinette Fry. The
band played brilliantly, and, exalted again, dramatic intensely, it was
the Big Shot, Public Enemy Number One, at his best who moved forward in
character to the position assigned him.

"All ready?" the photographer asked.

Filmer twitched back his jacket, put his hand to the butt of the water
pistol, and bent every effort upon keeping his almost worn-out chin
thrust forward. "Shoot!" he said with difficulty.

"Okay," the photographer announced. "Hold it, please. Just an instant.
Another shot, to make sure. Okay. Thanks. Now where's that next outfit?"
He turned to the tired young woman with the notebook. "Got yours on
this?"

"I think so," she answered. "Let me see. This is Mrs. Ripley Little, of
course, and Miss Olita Filmer, I think, and----"

"Yes," Mrs. Little said, briskly on her feet. "As I told you--a Colonial
Dame--and this is Filmer Little, my son. Now, Filmer, we'll have to
collect Lila and----"

"Do they know who I am?" Filmer asked her, as they moved away. "Did you
tell 'em?"

"Yes, I'm sure I did," she answered, laughing. "Come; it's late and
we'll have to get those children home."

The shining thought possessed Filmer--his picture would be in the paper,
dark, ominous, scowling from deep-shadowed eyes, hand on weapon. He felt
noble, wished to be kind to everybody, a model son to his parents.

He wanted a word with Antoinette, Ellie, Bill, Slops, and Charlsworth
Beck--just to mention that it might be worth their while to watch the
newspapers--but, discovering at the Toastie Sandwich Booth that they'd
all gone home, he wasn't downcast. Surprise might even add to the effect
tomorrow, he thought; and, in the car, driving to Francie and Frankie's
house, he was dreamy, gentle, enveloped in the proud bliss that makes us
meek.

He spent the evening quietly at home; and, when in the morning he woke,
there was a smile upon his face. Already, upon thousands of doorsteps
his picture was waiting; at thousands of breakfast tables it was
unfolding before the population. Antoinette Fry, overcome, might be
looking at it this very moment. Charlsworth Beck and Bill and Slops, and
Ellie Turner, were either staring at it openmouthed or would be, within
the hour. In his mind's eye Filmer saw only the picture of himself--his
mother and Cousin Olita were but blurs--and, beneath it, the words,
FILMER LITTLE AS BIG SHOT, PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE. His feelings were
those of an obscure aspirant to whom a great voice behind the clouds
cries thrice: "This day Renown is thine!"

At the breakfast table he found only Cousin Olita, with no public
journal in sight. "Goody's _so_ upset!" she explained. "Your father had
an early breakfast and took the _Morning News_ downtown with him before
any of us were up. Goody's sure that droopy girl with the photographer
was getting everything all mixed up and it won't be a good picture of
her. I expect the one I was in got spoiled, too, because your mother was
in such a hurry I know I saw her moving when he snapped his camera. I
shouldn't wonder if they left it out altogether, and I haven't had my
picture in the paper for ten years. Just my luck!"

Filmer thought the exhibition of egoism sickening and refused to admit
the possibility of a fiasco. "Look! Haven't you got brains enough to
know a big active newspaper's got modern cameras too fast to throw a
whole picture out just because somebody on one edge of it jiggled their
arms or something? You take the modern camera and----"

Mrs. Little came in gayly just then, carrying two copies of the _Morning
News_. "The pictures of the Fair are all lovely," she said, and placed
one paper before Cousin Olita and the other before Filmer. "Hamilton
Ellers bought out the drug store and's brought Goody ten copies, so you
can each have one to keep. Goody came out beautifully, right in the
center. The one of us three's splendid, too. It's good of Filmer and
better of you than I expected, Cousin Olita, though I think it makes me
look rather older than----"

Filmer wasn't listening. With hasty hands he brought to view the page of
reproduced photographs of the Annual Welfare Fund American Costume Fair
on the grounds of the Eric Homer Smith Estate. Goody, beautifully
recognizable and distinctly wearing her medal and ribbon, confronted
him, a single large portrait in the midst of the groups. Filmer's eye
didn't linger upon Goody; it sped to the lower right-hand corner of the
page and beheld his own likeness there.

It wasn't what he expected. It looked boyish unbelievably, and, as the
water pistol was indistinguishable, his gesture of threateningly
touching it seemed to imply that he itched. The sideburns hadn't taken
well, either; seemed to be smut streaks. The cap appeared to be a
giant's. Except for the title below the picture the whole darn thing
might have been mistaken for the representation of a boy strangely
untidy and scratching himself--but Filmer hadn't yet read the title
below the picture.

His eye descended. He read, and the bottom fell out of his world: "Mrs.
Ripley Little as a Colonial Dame, Miss Olita Filmer as a Puritan Maiden,
and Master Filmer Little as an Urchin."

"'Maiden'," Cousin Olita mused, studying her copy of the paper.
"'Puritan Maiden'. I told that girl three times I was a Priscilla; but
maybe Maiden's just as well. Really I think the whole Fair passed off
beautifully and the pictures are going to make nice souvenirs for all of
us to keep. It's nice of you, too, Filmer."

"_Nice?_" Filmer, desiring no more breakfast, was on his feet; his
burning eyes fixed themselves upon his mother. "Listen!" he said. "You
told me you told that woman who I was! You said you told her I was Big
Shot Public En----"

"I'm sure I did, Filmer. I'm almost certain I told her even before I
went to look for you; but everything was in such a hurry just then
and----"

"Did you tell her I was meant to be an _Urchin?_ Did you? DID you?"

"Why, Filmer, of course I didn't tell her that; but what difference does
it make, dear?" Mrs. Little tried to laugh soothingly. "I suppose they
just forgot what I'm almost sure I'd said you were, and so they had to
think up something in the newspaper office that seemed suitable and----"

"_Suitable!_" Filmer shook the paper at her, and his unstable voice
became falsetto. "Do you think it's suitable at my age to be called
Master? 'Master Filmer Little'! _'Master'!_ That's a nice one, isn't it?
You _knew_ I was Big Shot, Public Enemy Number One. I told you before we
started and you knew it! You can read, can't you? It says 'Urchin'; it
says 'Master Filmer Little as an Urchin'! They claimed that Fair was for
a worthy purpose; but if this is what they do to the parcipitants I hope
they all drown! If _this_ is what I get for trying to help the poor
I----"

Mrs. Little tried to go on laughing calmingly, and Cousin Olita, too,
strove to be soothing. Seldom have such efforts been of less effect and
almost never has an adolescent voice sounded its variations more
excruciatedly than did Filmer's during the next half hour. Its
unexpected bass notes and pained flutings subsided intermittently; and
during the latter part of this period were heard from his room upstairs,
whither he retired to be alone with his emotion.

Opening his door, upon various afterthoughts, he would so address his
mother as to be audible to her wherever she was, upstairs or down. "If
you only _thought_ you told 'em who I was, what'd you tell me you were
_sure_ you did for?" he inquired, in this way, more than once. "If you
claim you know what the truth is, why couldn't you tell it to your own
son before everything got balled up and I could told 'em who I was,
myself? Were you deliberately trying to make your own son the
laughingstock of this city?"

He'd brought his copy of the paper upstairs with him, and at times
refreshed, so to speak, the paroxysm. Whenever Mother Nature partially
restored his calm, he undid her work by glaring again at the picture of
himself. Over and over, with accompanying miserable lip movements, he
read the libel, "And Master Filmer Little as an Urchin." Thus he kept
his grief alive until midmorning when there was an addition to it from
outdoors.

His open window brought him the sound of infantile voices, and, looking
down morbidly, he beheld Frankie and Francie gamboling upon green grass,
while the head of Lila, rising from border shrubberies, conversed with a
man in overalls who mowed the Watsons' lawn. Filmer went to the head of
the stairway and shouted down to his mother, who was in the living-room.

"What are those children doing on our property? If you expect to saddle
Frankie and Francie on me again after what I been through----"

"No, no, dear!" his mother called from below. "Cousin Lydia doesn't want
'em exposed to her cold and they're just going to spend the day with us.
They----"

"Spend the day? The whole DAY?" Filmer said, and said no more.

He declined to remain upon the premises, went down the back stairs and
sought loneliness by way of a rear gate out of the range of vision of
Frankie and Francie. Strolling morosely, he was presently behind the
garage belonging to the Fry family, and, pausing, heard young laughter
from the front yard. He listened bitterly; then spoke half aloud: "Well,
I got to--_some_ time--haven't I?" He meant that eventually he'd have to
face the contumely of his Group; so why not desperately do it now?

He climbed over the Frys' back fence, and, walking slowly, passed round
the house and approached the front yard. There, Antoinette and Ellie
engaged in a running scuffle with Bill, Slops and Charlsworth.
Antoinette and Charlsworth broke away from the others; Charlsworth
flourished a crumpled newspaper, and Antoinette, pursuing, tried to
snatch it from him. She was the first to see Filmer, and at once stopped
running, stood still and stared at him. Charlsworth, too, stopped and
stared. So did Slops and Bill and Ellie.

"Well, all right," Filmer thought doggedly. "Now it's coming! Well, I
got to stand it."

"Filmer!" Antoinette cried. "Come make Charlsworth give me this
newspaper that's got your picture in it. They're all mad 'cause I said I
was going to cut it out and frame it!"

Charlsworth, Bill and Slops looked at him with unwilling deference.
"Surprised you condescend to join us!" Bill said. "Got the big head this
morning, I s'pose?" Slops, speaking at the same time, made a feeble
belittling effort: "Whenever you get to thinking you're so famous and
everything, don't forget the paper called you 'Master'. That part of
it's not so hot, Filmer old kid!" Also, Charlsworth asked rallyingly:
"How'd you work it, sport? Nothing but you and the Little family all
over the page. Your father got stock in that paper?"

"Filmer Little!" fat little Ellie shouted. "Aren't you simply crazy
about yourself?"

Antoinette took Filmer's arm cosily. "What I think was the beaniest of
all, Filmer," she said, "it was your being an urchin. Now who in the
whole world would ever think of that but you?" She leaned to his ear,
spoke softly. "Didn't I always tell you you're different from anybody?"

Filmer began to perceive that people can have dazingly different views
not only about world affairs but of even what is simplest. He'd kept his
intended appearance as Big Shot or Public Enemy Number One so private
and had been recognized in that capacity by so few--if indeed by
anybody--that his debut into publicity as an urchin, instead, was being
accepted not with derision but admiringly. His supposed impersonation of
an urchin seemed even to imply a certain wittiness on his part--at
least, Antoinette and Ellie plainly thought so. His Group was greeting
him with envy on the part of the males and with a new tenderness on the
part of the females. In a word, he was being received as their
celebrity.

His insides completed some readjustments. "Well----" he said,
swallowing. "I'll--I'll get you another copy of that newspaper if these
heels spoil this one, Antoinette. I don't see why you want to frame it,
though. Just having my picture in the paper don't amount to so terribly
much."

He would have protracted this modesty, except for an interruption. Lila
was still talking to the man in overalls; but Frankie and Francie had
begun to study the neighborhood. Hand in hand they appeared before
Antoinette's front gate, and, having opened it, caught sight of Filmer.
"_Canny!_" they squealed, rushing toward him. "Canny! Canny!"

Filmer bellowed at them. "You go home! Go back out that gate! Go home!"

"No, no!" Antoinette cried, and, sitting upon the grass, took Frankie
upon her lap. "I thought you were so cute yesterday, Filmer, when they
were having their little fight and you tried to separate 'em. Do you
think you could coax 'em to have another little fight, Filmer, maybe?"

There wasn't any trouble about that; Filmer didn't need to coax. Francie
also wanted to sit on Antoinette's lap, and, almost before the request
was made, Frankie and Francie were having another of their little
fights--not such a little one, at that.

"Aren't they marvelous!" Antoinette exclaimed. "Just adorable!"

"Well--in their way," Filmer admitted; and he added, modest again, "Why
they tag around after me so much all the time, I expect it's mostly
because they're cousins of mine. The way they act so excited about me,
it's likely more on account of being connected in my family maybe than
anything they seem to look up to in me in particular about, especially,
I expect."




CHAPTER XXII


"Aren't you proud of Goody?" Mrs. Little asked, after greeting her
husband upon his return from downtown, late in the afternoon. She'd gone
outdoors to meet him, and they sat for a while in garden chairs. "The
photograph didn't half show how lovely she looked at the Fair. Still, it
wasn't really bad."

"No; not bad at all," he agreed. "Of course Goody's better-looking than
that. Still, it was fairly like her--fairly. To me it's something of a
puzzle about Filmer, though. All that practising he's been doing with
his face--and muttering--I don't see how it qualified him to be an
urchin especially."

"No, he didn't mean it for that, Ripley. Sometimes I think Filmer's
almost as reasonable as a man fifty years old, and right afterward I
just give up. There are whole days when you can't understand the
workings of his mind much better than you can little Frankie's and
Francie's." Thus she spoke of her son who, in turn, didn't understand
Frankie and Francie, or his parents, either. To Filmer the behavior and
conversation of Frankie and Francie, and his parents also, usually
seemed inspired by unreason so profound as not to be worth even a
speculative investigation.

"What's he done now?" Little asked. "_Now_ what's he done?"

"Nothing--except this morning he was in such a state as never was about
his picture in the paper. You were right about his intending to treat
the Fair to a sketch of a desperado, Ripley. He meant himself to be
supposedly a---- Oh, something about a Big Shot or Public Enemy Number
One; but I'm afraid I must have forgotten to make that really clear to
the reporter. Filmer was in _such_ a state this morning over being
called an urchin; then at noon he came home with six copies of the
_Morning News_ he'd bought and he spent the whole afternoon cutting out
the picture of himself, pasting it on squares of cardboard, and then
making and gilding little strips of wood into picture-frames. He's left
one on his bureau, for himself; but I think he's still over at
Antoinette Fry's distributing the others among his friends. How's
anybody ever going to understand conduct like that?"

"It seems to be a different race," Little said. "Anybody between the
ages of thirteen and twenty nowadays seems to belong to some other
planet, like the new kind of politicians. All I know about either of 'em
is I'm the goat; they've got me. Why, job jam my foolish soul, I ever
let myself be whangboozled into buying that new convertible----"

"But, Ripley, think how much smoother our life's been ever since. Don't
you realize, yourself, how much peacefuller your own nerves are, dear,
than----"

"I realize I've had more sleep lately," he admitted. "But that's only
because the car keeps her more away from home--out somewhere with that
jobjam Norman Peel and----"

"Now, dearie," Mrs. Little interrupted, "you always seem to forget that
it was you yourself got her interested in Norman."

"I did," Little said. "For my sins, I did. I thought he'd be a good
influence on her and I totally overlooked the influence she'd be on him.
He used to be conceited but quiet. _Horribly_ conceited, but quiet! How
long did it take her to turn him into the noisiest, yellingest,
try-to-singest jam vase-breaker in the whole outfit? If I've got to have
it thrown up to me for the rest of my life that I brought Norman Peel
into this house I----"

"Now, Ripley!" Mrs. Little rose, and glanced toward the street. "There's
Filmer coming home, so Antoinette must have been called in for dinner. I
wonder what's delaying ours. I'd better skip in and see."

She went upon this mission, and Filmer, coming dreamily into the yard,
was surprised by a question his father called at him. "Well, did you get
your gifts all distributed?"

"Sir?" Filmer came nearer and stood, quiescent. "What gifts?"

"I was just curious," Ripley Little explained genially. "Your mother
tells me you felt hurt this morning when you found the newspaper'd
labeled your picture an urchin; but that later you went to a good deal
of pains to mount and frame copies of it as souvenirs for your friends.
I'd just like to get the idea; that's all."

"Yes, sir. They said they wanted 'em. You see, it'd turned out all right
after all. Of course I didn't originally expect the photograph'd have
that under it, and when I first saw it I thought it was going to do me
some pretty tough dirt because the costume I went in represented
something entirely different. What I went as----"

"Yes?" Ripley Little said, as his son paused uneasily. "You went as
what?"

"Well--well--I intended to be Big Shot, or Public Enemy Number One,
and----" He paused again; then, seeing that his father's face remained
calm, Filmer became more confidential. "I kind of had another idea
behind that, too; but I didn't expect to announce it or that anybody'd
recognize me as it, exactly."

"Yes. What was it?"

Filmer rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand, somewhat embarrassed.
"Well, I mean it was something I kind of pretended to myself that I
was--something kind of more important than just simply being Big Shot,
Public Enemy Number One. I mean I kind of had an idea behind it all,
just to myself."

"I think I get you," Ripley Little said. "What was this idea that was
behind the rest of it?"

"Well--maybe it was kind of foolish----But the way I looked at it,
myself, Father, besides being Big Shot, Public Enemy Number One, I was
acting the part of--of something else."

"Yes? What something else, Filmer?"

"Well, just to myself," Filmer said diffidently, "I was being one of the
Fighting Littles."

"One of the who?"

"The Fighting Littles, Father," Filmer explained. "You were telling us
something once about the Fighting Whitings, so just to myself I was kind
of being the Big Shot of the Fighting Littles. Of course I knew I
_wasn't_ the Big Shot of the Fighting Littles because of course you'd be
that, yourself, Father; but this was just only dressing up like that and
acting it for the Fair, so I thought----"

"The Fighting Littles?" Ripley Little stared at Filmer. "Just because a
certain family got called the Fighting Whitings doesn't mean there were
ever any Fighting Littles. The Little family have always been the most
peaceable, quiet-mannered, unbelligerent----"

"What, Father?"

"What do you mean 'what?'" Ripley Little said with some testiness. "'The
Fighting Littles'! I don't know where on earth----"

"But didn't you have a grandfather that was this old General Little?"
Filmer asked. "You were in the last World War yourself, too, weren't
you, Father? You were in some of those trenches, weren't you?"

"What of it?" Ripley Little said. "That doesn't mean our family was ever
called the Fighting Littles."

"Well----" Filmer looked regretful. "I didn't mean to get you cross
again, Father."

"Cross? Not at all. I just don't happen to see where you ever could have
got such an idea." The sound of a musical gong came from within the
house, and father and son moved in the direction whence came the
summons. Ripley Little was annoyed, but tried to keep this feeling out
of his voice. "I suppose it's just as well, Filmer, that your publicity
entitled you an urchin, especially as you seem to have felt that the
actual Big Shot of the Fighting Littles was much the same as Public
Enemy Number One."

"What, Father?"

"Nothing!" Ripley Little said. "Nothing whatever. Let's get in to
dinner."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Filmer's peculiar idea remained in the father's mind, and, as a
young-voiced song came from the distance in the after-dinner twilight to
where the three elders of the family sat on the dimming lawn, Little
told his wife and Cousin Olita of the talk he'd had with his son.

"Can't they _ever_ quit singing that?" he added. "'You're as pure as ice
but a ball of fire!' If anything on earth could make a Fighting Little
out of me _it's_ going to if I have to keep on hearing it all summer.
The Fighting Littles! Where'd he----"

"Oh, I suppose he's just picked up some old family stories," Mrs. Little
said placatively.

"Family stories? What family stories? Not on _my_ side of the family!
What family stories?"

"Oh, nothing of any importance, of course, Ripley. I only mean maybe
some time he's heard you telling, for instance, about the time your
father threw both of his uncles out of the----"

"Nonsense!" Ripley Little said commandingly. "I don't think I ever told
it when he was present, anyhow. No, it couldn't have been----" He
interrupted himself, seeming to detect an exchange of almost speaking
glances between his wife and Cousin Olita. "If I know what you're
thinking," he said, "and I think I do, you're wrong, because there never
was a Little yet that didn't let himself be walked on more than half the
time; but--well, for anybody who has the least understanding of what's
going _on_ everywhere----"

"What, Ripley?" his wife asked, as he paused.

"Just mumbling to myself," he said. "Forget it." He was silent, musing
resentfully in the gathering darkness; then became aware that Mrs.
Little and Cousin Olita were discussing matters of dress. "What do you
mean what you're going to wear tomorrow?" he asked. "Why especially
tomorrow?"

"For Goody's little Tea," his wife explained timidly. "Tomorrow
afternoon Goody's having a little Tea for Miss Wanstreet."

"She's only in town for a few days," Cousin Olita said. "Goody met her
at the Fair and had quite a long talk with her and was simply carried
away. Gentry reports he can get Beulah to help serve, Cousin Wilma."

"Yes, Goody told me. She said Gentry said Beulah's coming, though she
didn't much want to. But it seems Beulah's seen our new convertible
and's trying to arrange with a finance company to buy one like it. Of
course Miss Wanstreet----"

"Miss Wanstreet," Ripley Little echoed. "Who's Miss Wanstreet? Who's
Beulah?"

"Beulah's a cousin of Gentry Poindexter's," Cousin Olita explained.
"Goody thought we ought to have at least three to make the serving
smooth tomorrow, because of course she's awfully excited about Miss
Wanstreet's coming. Gentry says Beulah's mother never got a lick of work
out of her in her life; but he thinks she'll be all right for the Tea.
He says she took fancy-dancing in high school and then got into a
Federal ballet and thought she was fixed for life and----"

"Miss Wanstreet?" Little asked perversely. "Which are you talking about,
this Miss Wanstreet or this Beulah?"

"Why, Gentry's Cousin Beulah, of course, Cousin Ripley. It was Beulah
was in the Federal ballet and thought it was permanent."

"She did?" Little said. "In a Federal ballet? Just going to dance the
summer hours away on our money the rest of her life, was she?"

"Yes, Cousin Ripley; so Gentry says. But it seems they've given up
several of those projects on account of Defense and so Beulah's willing
to take small commissions like serving at tea to help her buy her new
car."

"I seem to have Beulah placed," Little said. "Who's Miss Wanstreet?"

"Why, don't you know?" Cousin Olita was surprised. "It's Miss Meta
Wanstreet. Surely you've seen her name in the papers often enough,
Cousin Ripley?"

"Yes; often enough," he said, emphasizing the third word. "Heads
movements, doesn't she? I don't know what about, though. Somebody
without much else to do, isn't she?"

"She's terribly important, Cousin Ripley. I saw in an article on her her
maiden name's Grofil; but her husband is a Mr. Horgish."

"What is all this?" Ripley Little's voice grew more impatient. "If her
husband's name's Hoggish she's got to be Mrs. Hoggish, hasn't she?"

"No!" Mrs. Little made sounds of protest. "_Hor_gish. Her husband's name
is Horgish and they're both mixed up in all kinds of deep movements that
Goody says make her feel she's been wasting her life because she's never
been intellectually social-minded enough. Now she wants to be and I
think we ought to encourage it, Ripley; but you mustn't call Miss
Wanstreet Horgish because she very naturally uses the name she first got
famous by--Wanstreet. Goody asked me to be very, very careful to see
that you keep calling her 'Miss Wanstreet', Ripley."

"Keep calling her? What do you mean keep calling her? I'm not going to
call her at all."

"Please do, dear," Mrs. Little said coaxingly. "She got so interested in
Goody she said she simply _must_ meet her family too. Of course I didn't
know whether you'd come or not--I was afraid not--but now that we're
speaking of it, it seems to me it would be rather pointed if you stayed
away after Miss Wanstreet said she hoped to meet us all, and especially
you."

"Especially me? Why?"

"Why, because you're Goody's father, Ripley dear, and she's taken such a
tremendous fancy to Goody. You will, won't you, Ripley? Everything's
going so nicely and pleasantly just now, and Goody's really set her
heart on your coming, Ripley. She told me so."

"Did she?" Ripley Little spoke somewhat drily; but in his heart he was
pleased. He was a little flattered, in fact, by Goody's wanting him.
"Well, we'll see. I don't know but I might if Goody thinks it proper for
her new friends to meet both her parents. We'll see; we'll see."




CHAPTER XXIII


This placated mood of Ripley Little's still reigned when he arrived for
the Tea and guided his shabby car past the line of shinier ones in his
driveway.

He went upstairs by the back way, and presently came down unusually
dressed up and containing a hopeful heart. He wished to show Goody that
he was interested in her branching out toward a more intellectual
life--and maybe, oh, maybe, her new friends were going to be a great
improvement upon Norman Peel, Ham Ellers, Bull Thetford, Ruggo Smart,
Hot Toddy, and Cuckoo and Screwball!

The chatter of competing voices was loud, and, as he entered the
living-room, he saw before him his wife, who looked strained, his
daughter, who looked excited, Cousin Olita, who looked busy, several
strangers, who looked fashionable, the abhorred Norman Peel and perhaps
a dozen or so other people more or less known to him. Goody was talking
rapidly to two of the strangers, one of them a fragile young woman with
burning black eyes, and the other a handsome rather portly lady of
forty, rosy of face and exquisitely dressed.

Little thought that the fragile, burning-eyed one was probably Mrs.
Horgish--or, rather, as he ought to say, Miss Wanstreet--but his wife's
flustered introduction of him proved the contrary: the big, richly
dressed, handsome one of forty was Miss Wanstreet and the burning-eyed
one was a Mrs. Pologa.

"So this is our baby member's father!" Miss Wanstreet said, in a voice
so hearty that it startled Little. "Bravo!" she added graciously, he
didn't see why, and she extended toward him at arm's length the
half-consumed large champagne cocktail she held in her right hand.
Thinking she meant him to set it upon a table for her, he tried to take
it from her; but he'd mistaken her intention. She withdrew the glass
quickly and drank from it, while he, confused, wasn't sure whether she
was drinking his health or trying to make him look like a fool. He felt
like one; everybody in the whole place seemed to be staring at him
inquiringly, and his mortified neck, hot, swelled against his hard
collar, he so repented his courteous gesture. "Bravo!" Miss Wanstreet
gayly said again. "Mr. Little, I'm sure you'll be enchanted to know that
we've decided to call your daughter our little Saint Joan."

"Is that so?" he asked in a polite tone, though already he didn't much
like this Miss Wanstreet. "What for?"

Goody put a hand upon his arm. "Please go on with what you were saying
before we were interrupted, Meta," she begged. "Father, do let Beulah
give you some tea, and listen. It's all _so_ exciting!" Little took a
cup of tea and a Virginia ham sandwich from the young colored woman of
unfamiliar face who proffered a tray. So this was the ex-Federal ballet
dancer, was it, he thought, antagonized, especially as Beulah seemed to
look at him contemptuously, thinking no doubt that as a dancer he'd be
rotten. He hated tea, too, and so did his stomach, but not so much as
they both hated champagne cocktails. Goody went on with her entreaty.
"Please, please finish what you were telling us when poor Father barged
in, Meta. I mean all about those exciting meetings you had during your
two weeks of flying all over California."

"Exciting, rather!" Miss Wanstreet accepted a liquid replacement from
the hospitable Gentry. "Flying from one of our drive-centers to another,
I simply lived on exhilaration! One feels the impact of all these
gorgeously fascinating new ideologies. I always land right in the midst
of minds attuned to the vast changes that are going on, building for the
days to come. You know of course, don't you, Mr. Little, that the old
America that we used to live in has gone for good--all of it--and of
course we'll never get back to it and naturally wouldn't if we could."

"Wouldn't we?" he said. "We wouldn't?"

Miss Wanstreet laughed. "Good heavens, no! What our new recruit, our
little Saint Joan, will explain to you, Mr. Little, when she has a
chance--because of course, you see, we count on her to bring you
in--it's our plan for educating not only the common man but even the
most obdurate samples of our old discarded and worn-out tory capitalism.
Of course you understand we're anything but Communists, though--that
silly old witch-hunting charge against anybody who tries to do anything
modernly good in government! Yes, indeed, it's our task to educate
pretty much everybody. You see, the very heart of our problem is what
we're to do at the peace-table. What we're doing primarily, you see,
it's preparing America to be ready for that."

"You are?" Ripley Little didn't understand what she was talking about;
but he was sure that he didn't like it and he began to suspect that he'd
walked himself straight into a Hot Spot.

"What's your own idea, Mr. Little?" Miss Wanstreet asked. "I mean what's
your conception of America's precise place in the world-to-come?" He
didn't need to answer, for she continued cheerfully, "You see, that's
just the trouble; so few people have made up their minds and their ideas
have to be formed for them. That's our plan, Mr. Little. That's what
we're working for. We have to have a permanent peace and a permanent
prosperity that will be universal. The fact that the problem's colossal
doesn't mean that we don't need to settle it, does it? We have it on our
hands, haven't we? So what are we going to do about it? We----"

"Who's 'we'?" he asked, and, to the ears of his hovering wife, he didn't
sound reassuring. "I mean who is this 'we' you're talking about that's
got to settle everything?"

"Let me explain it to him, Meta," the burning-eyed Mrs. Pologa
intervened. "In the first place, Mr. Little, you surely don't ask us to
stop _planning_ for the new world, do you? Surely you don't want the
world to go back to the Victorian days of Edward the Seventh and Harding
and Coolidge, do you?"

"Do I?" Little responded. "Would I like to get back to Harding and
Coolidge? WOULD I? Listen, Mrs. Polo, I----"

"Ga!" Goody cried. "Polo-_ga!_ What a man! He never does get anything
straight. Not Polo, Father. Pologa!"

"All right, Pologa," he said. "What about we can't get back to Harding
and Coolidge? I know that, don't I? Hitler wouldn't let us if we tried;
so what about it, Mrs. Pologa?"

Mrs. Pologa looked at him coldly. "Have you read Laski, Mr. Little?"

"Who?" Little was now wholly confused. "Doesn't he have something to do
with the movies?"

"I thought not." Mrs. Pologa smiled slightly. "I thought not."

Miss Wanstreet uttered a peal of good-natured laughter. "You're
delightful, Mr. Little!" she said. "Our young Saint Joan warned us you
were somewhat of the old order; but we're going to make a convert of
you. Indeed we are! You haven't met my husband." She beckoned to a
fair-haired slim young man, who obediently came and joined them. "This
is Mr. Little, Freddie; and, Mr. Little, perhaps you ought to know that
our Freddie Horgish is quite an important person because he's virtually
certain to be head of the government's new questionnaire department as
soon as we get it officially established. I'm afraid Mr. Little doesn't
know much about our movement yet, Freddie. Explain it to him."

"It's very simple," Mr. Horgish said; and, even before he spoke, the
fact that he had platinum-blond eye-winkers prejudiced Ripley Little
against him. "In fact, nothing could be simpler. All of our vast social
and economic changes have only scratched the surface. Our movement is to
make certain that the factual voice of the common man is heard on all
questions of government; but that's only a mere start, a mere start of
course. I take it that like any other patriotic person you'd be
enthusiastic for this ideal, wouldn't you, Mr. Little?"

"I don't know," Little said sulkily. "I might be and I might not be. Up
to now I don't get you. What's it got to do with this Lasky?"

"Nothing, you dear man," Miss Wanstreet laughed. "I suppose it might be
called revolution by consent, in a sense; but I'm afraid if we went into
that it might only be rather confusing. You see, Mr. Little, radio
quizzes and newspaper polls have already led the way in a stumbling
fashion; but _we_ hold that this work should be tremendously enlarged
and become a governmental function."

"Function?" Little repeated, and began faintly to see a light. "You mean
you're trying to pile up a new government bureau on us?"

"_What_ a way to put it!" Miss Wanstreet continued to laugh at him
amiably, as if he were a funny little boy. "Yes, Mr. Little, with a seat
in the Cabinet at the top of it! How are we going to find out what
people _want_ unless we ask them? A system of fifteen to fifty million
questionnaires a month, with a tabulation of the varying answers
would---- Now, Mr. Little, don't ask me what that would cost! I see it
coming in your eye; but don't ask, because of course it's really putting
a foundation under the whole Defense structure. What's more, it's
catching on like wildfire; we've organized groups up and down the land
to write and wire Congress and hold meetings and collect voters'
signatures. We're going to have yours, too, you know, Mr. Little."

"You are?" he said, in a tone that meant nobody was going to have his
signature for anything. "Are you?"

"Father, sit down!" Goody cried. "You're spilling your tea and wasting
Meta's time because you don't grasp what she's saying. Do sit down."

He obeyed, glad to be out of the limelight; for most of the guests had
gathered about the central group formed by himself, Miss Wanstreet, Mrs.
Pologa, Mr. Horgish and Goody. He sat in a chair against the wall and
listened ominously while Miss Wanstreet, Mrs. Pologa and Mr. Horgish
continued to explain their movement. He thought he was beginning to
arrive at the gist of it, especially when he heard such bits as, "Oh,
yes, we've got the economy bloc licked to death!" and, from Mr. Horgish,
"Oh, yes indeed, Meta has done marvelous lobbying for me; it's really
she that's put me over." It was Goody who shouted, then, "A thousand
congratulations!" and Mrs. Pologa kissed Mr. Horgish while two or three
other people patted his back.

Ripley Little ate sandwiches and drank more tea against his better
judgment, imposing this discipline upon himself as a preventive. It
helped to keep him from making a scene, something he more and more
eagerly desired to do; but he didn't wish to begin a new war with Goody.
She'd gone straight from swing to Hellespont; he didn't know which was
worse but thought both were. The restraint he was putting on himself
told on him: his face was red, his eyes were becoming bloodshot and
protuberant, and intermittently his neck swelled out above his
circumvallating collar. Over the rim of his tepid teacup he looked at
the face of Mr. Horgish, who was explaining how many buildings would be
needed for the official staffs of the projected new department.

"Dob dab him!" Ripley Little said in a low voice, meaning Mr. Horgish,
not Pussy, though Pussy was present and seeking gifts of food from the
guests. "Dob dab the job jammed bastinadoed son of a bullfinch!"

Miss Wanstreet, amused, had been watching her host with the tail of an
eye, and, though she didn't hear the words he'd just used to define her
husband, she comprehended that their purport wasn't favorable. "You'll
come round, Mr. Little," she said smilingly. "We're leaving that to
Goody; but we know that you feel the new ideas sweeping over you,
baffling you, turning you heels over head, dazing you. That's natural,
at first; but presently you'll find yourself swirling along with them as
they break down your obsolete old system and----"

"My old system?" Ripley Little set his small plate upon a table beside
him and put his hand upon his abdomen. "My old system?" He spoke in a
rising tone that was a breach of manners and stopped all other
conversation. "What do you mean my obsolete old system?"

"Don't pay any attention to him!" Goody was scarlet, but contrived to
laugh. "I _knew_ I ought to have had Mother keep him out because he was
sure to do something! It was you who insisted on having him, though,
Meta; you're really responsible."

"Don't be alarmed," Miss Wanstreet said cheerily. "Anybody can see he's
really an old dear, you know."

"I'm not," Ripley Little announced. "I've been called a good many things
in my time, but not that."

Breathing loudly, he was striding toward the door when words uttered by
his daughter stopped him for a last moment. Goody was as infuriated as
he; but she tried to sound indulgently amused. "Let him go! He's the
very kind that bring on the revolutions!"

"All right!" her father said. "I used to understand street-fighting, and
the sooner it comes to that, the better I'll like it!"




CHAPTER XXIV


His wife, fluttering after him as soon as she could coordinate her
members, overtook him at the front door. "Ripley, Ripley," she said,
lamenting faintly. "What in the world's upset you? What's your hat on
for?"

"For my head," he replied. "For my head!"

"Now, Ripley, please!" she begged him. "Please, please don't go out on
one of your----"

"One of my what?" he asked fiercely. "Have you known me to touch a drop
of intoxicating liquor in the last eight years and seven months? I only
wish I could, jabjam it, without the doctor."

"But, Ripley, you oughtn't to get so beside yourself just because
Goody's new friends don't seem to think as you do about everything. I
don't quite understand their ideals, myself, and maybe even Goody
doesn't yet altogether; but she's _so_ enthusiastic. I'm sure we both
ought to encourage her all we can. Only the four principal ones are
going to be here for dinner, and it'll be a short meal, Ripley, because
they have to hurry away to hold an organizing meeting right after. So
won't you please stay and try to be nice for just a _short_ dinner,
please, Ripley?"

"Me?" he said. "Not while my jobjam obsolete old system's got legs under
it! Goodnight, Mrs. Little."

"Now, Ripley, please----"

Her helpless plaint floated after him as he made his way to the street
and heaved on toward a descending coppery sun harmonious with his own
complexion.

He walked and walked; then dined (so to call it) at the Daisy Dunker,
although he knew that in his present condition he oughtn't to eat at all
and that in any condition he oughtn't to eat what he horribly did at the
Daisy Dunker. Afterward he went to a movie that was all about
slaughtering large wild creatures, including a whale, and when he came
out he felt good and sickish.

At home the only sound he heard in the house was Pussy's growling at him
from behind Goody's closed door upstairs. Ripley Little came to the
correct conclusion that both Mrs. Little and Cousin Olita had
accompanied Goody and her new friends to their meeting; and, after
responding sotto voce to Pussy, as was his custom, he looked about for
his evening newspaper. He couldn't find it and sat down to smoke a cigar
that didn't taste anything like right. A cheerful whistler was heard
approaching the house; but the melody whistled didn't help Little's
troubled digestion: "You're as pure as ice but a ball of fire."

Filmer came in through the unlocked front door, looked into the
living-room, stopped whistling and spoke from the doorway. "Good
evening, Father," he said politely. "Is something the matter with you?"

"No, it's not. Do you _always_ have to whistle that same tune, Filmer?"

"No, sir; I guess it isn't compulsatory," Filmer replied. "Look, Father,
what kinds of goons were those Goody had here for dinner? Mother kept
saying about a hundred times she was afraid you had an emergency call at
the dentist's; but even if you did and he hurt you some I guess you were
lucky, because I never did hear such a powwow and they might just about
as well been talking Cherokee. I bet they don't understand what they're
up to, themselves."

"I bet they do," Ripley Little said briefly.

"What, Father?"

"Get to bed, Filmer. Get to bed."

"Yes, sir." Filmer yawned, then whistled himself upstairs; but paused at
the top to call down an apology. "I beg your pardon, Father; I forgot."
He began to whistle the banned tune again, checked himself scrupulously
and ceased to be heard.

His father's cigar had gone out and was not relighted, the house was
still, and Ripley Little drifted into a half-sick state of dozing, from
which he was roused to full wakefulness by the sound of two covert
voices in the hallway. "Yes, I know she wanted me to," he heard his wife
saying. "I know, I know; but I'm sure it'd be better if you did it. You
know what he'll say if I try to. I'm sure almost anybody'd have a better
chance than I would. Anyhow, try."

"Well----" Cousin Olita's voice sounded undecided. "Of course I'm always
glad to do anything in the world for Goody."

"Try," Mrs. Little urged her. "Do try, Cousin Olita."

"Well--it seems somebody's got to." Cousin Olita appeared in the
doorway, smiling. "Would I disturb you, Cousin Ripley, if I came in for
just a teeny chat?" she asked ingratiatingly. "Would I----"

"Yes," he said. "You certainly would. I'm asleep. Stop waking me up. Go
'way from there."

"Yes but----" Cousin Olita said. "Couldn't I just a minute, Cousin
Ripley?"

"No," he replied, and closed his eyes.

Cousin Olita withdrew; there was a hurriedly argumentative whispering in
the hall, and Mrs. Little walked in and nervously affected surprise at
the sight of him. "Why, Ripley dear, asleep in your chair? Don't you
want something to eat, dear?"

He opened his eyes. "I do not. I certainly do not."

"But did you----"

"Yes, I did," he said. "Plenty. Too plenty and it's repeating on me.
What were you trying to get her to do to me?"

"Who?" Mrs. Little asked incautiously. "You mean Cousin Olita? Nothing,
dear. I just thought maybe you'd like to go up and be snugly in bed
before they all get here. I'll bring you some soda and ammonia, dear."

"No, you won't. Before who all get here?"

"Why, it's like this." Mrs. Little began to be fluttery, very. "You see,
it wasn't an especially large meeting, but was _ever_ so enthusiastic
and Goody's had quite an honor, Ripley. Coming on top of the prize at
the Fair the other day, we ought to be _so_ proud of her! You see, they
organized tonight and elected Goody the head of it. She's to be this
city's chairman, Ripley. It's really quite an honor at her age to be so
prominent. Of course, too, it means that a great deal will be expected
of her."

"Such as?" he inquired. "Such as?"

"Why, getting--getting the organization started here and everything,
Ripley dear. Of course the first thing she'll have to do will be to get
the--the subscriptions for keeping it alive and--and all that--to get
them coming in--and she'll--she'll----"

"She'll what?"

"Well, of course--of course----" Mrs. Little looked genuinely frightened
now. "Don't you really think you'd better get up to bed, dearie? They're
staying a while to talk it over after the meeting; but they thought--at
least Goody thought--it'd be nice if they'd all come here for a while
afterward to--to rest and relax after the work of the evening. You see,
Miss Wanstreet and Mrs. Pologa and Mr. Horgish and Mr. Berger are taking
a plane at three-twenty----"

"Which three-twenty? A.M. or P.M.? Who's Mr. Berger?"

"Mr. Berger? He was the grayish-haired short one. Didn't you meet him,
Ripley? He's _so_ nice and seems to be doing quite a little of the
preliminary financing, I understand. Three-twenty in the morning, dear.
So Goody thought--that is, she thought----"

"Go ahead, Mrs. Little. What did Goody think?"

"She thought I'd better get here ahead of them." Mrs. Little sidled
nearer to the door. "She thought maybe I'd better see if you wouldn't
like to be in bed first and that I could have a--a little talk with you
upstairs and then--and then tell her. She's _so_ enthusiastic and
they--they all felt they ought to know something of what they could
count on from--from the new organization here, and of course, being
chairman, she'd be expected to head the list herself and they'd be _so_
pleased to know the--the amount--tonight before they leave, and so
Goody, being chairman, thought maybe I could find out for her and let
her know and she could announce it to 'em while they're here and----"
Breathless, Mrs. Little paused.

"Go on. Announce what to 'em?"

"Why--why, the amount. Now please, Ripley dear, don't look like that. Of
course it wouldn't have to be paid now--any time, _any_ time. What
Goody'd _like_ it to be, of course, would be in--in round numbers--on
account of her being chairman; but if you thought--if you thought we
couldn't afford that, even for such a good cause, or even five hundred
or, say, four hundred or even three----"

"For such a good cause?" He rose, and, as he did so, she moved backward
into the hall. "Three hundred dollars, did you say, Mrs. Little? I've
been feeling sick all evening and what I ate isn't the dobdab half of
it. Do you know how many causes we're subscribing to already? When a
man's own daughter sicks his wife on him for a subscription to start
pamphlets and broadcasts to get Miss Meta Wanstreet's Freddie a public
job--nothing else in the jobjam world, I tell you, Mrs. Little, not
another jobjam thing to it----"

"Oh, but Ripley!" she cried in protest. "_What_ makes you say that? You
couldn't be worse mistaken! You really don't understand, dear; they're
all so----"

"Not another dobdab jobjam thing to it, Mrs. Little! Yes, and planted it
I'd be shown up as a dobdab obsolete old tory capitalist if they
couldn't work me. I'm a liberal-minded man; but I'm getting jam tired of
movements for the jobjam Freddies, to get 'em salaries and stick 'em up
to run other people's business. Is that going to stop Hitler, and what
kind of 'peace-table' are they going to have if we _don't_ stop him?
Why, job jam it, when a man's own daughter falls for----"

"Now, Ripley, Ripley, please please! Goody's _so_ anxious to----"

"Anxious, Mrs. Little? What do you think I am? Can you tell me anything
on this earth I'm _not_ anxious about?"

"_So_ anxious," Mrs. Little repeated. "She did hope that when they got
here I could tell her you----"

"Not a cent, Mrs. Little. Not a jabjam cent for Freddie!"

"Ripley, Ripley, please!" she besought him, for he was shouting at her.
"Oh, dear _me!_" She was in a panic: cars were blatting from the
driveway. "Ripley, they're here! Don't you think you'd really
better----"

"Give Freddie my love!" Ripley Little said, as he rapidly ascended the
stairs. "Give the whole movement my love and tell 'em that's all they'll
get out of me! Give 'em my dearest love and tell 'em to go to the jobjam
dobdab bastinadoed Hellespont's helm! Goodnight!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

...In bed he tossed and sometimes moaned, partly because of his
indigestion and partly because of the sounds of rest and relaxation that
came from downstairs. The poor old hunted piano had begun to call for
help again; percussion instruments, in the wrong hands, were added to
the piano, and ere long some form of primordial dancing or war between
the sexes seemed to take place, encouraged by bellowings of Congo
passion. Ripley Little recognized hated voices.

"By dob!" he whispered. "By dob, she's got _them_ here, too. By dob, she
has!"

There was a soft knock upon his door, and his wife came in
apprehensively. "I wouldn't disturb you, dear, except I heard the bed
creaking and knew you must be rolling around," she said. "Ripley dear,
won't you please let me bring you some soda and ammonia?"

"No, I won't," he replied. "It's nine-tenths mental; my mind's getting
diseased. If I didn't know she'd only brought her social and economic
giants home to rest and relax, I'd have the delusion that she's got Ham
Ellers and Bull Thetford and Hot Toddy and the rest of 'em with their
drums and----"

"But Goody couldn't help _that_," Mrs. Little said quickly. "You see,
she had them all at the meeting--to make it larger--and--and it seems
Mr. Horgish plays the clarinet and had it with him and---- Ripley, I do
wish you felt well enough to come down the stairway just far enough to
peek in through the doorway and see Mrs. Pologa dance! Maybe you don't
feel like believing it; but really I never saw more wonderful dancing.
You'd get a totally different idea of them, dear, because you only saw
them when they were all so serious; but if you could see them now when
they've thrown all that off and are playing--just playing like
children--really, Ripley, you'd get a totally different idea of them."

"Would I?" he said. "You seem to realize, yourself, that almost any
totally different idea of 'em would be a better one."

"Oh, dear me!" Mrs. Little's sigh was a desperate one. "We had such a
happy time while you and Goody were getting along so nicely; I just
can't bear to see it stop and I'd do almost anything to keep it going.
Her heart's so set on this, Ripley, that I don't know what'll happen
tomorrow and from then on if we disappoint her. I know it seems to go
against the grain with you, dearie; but wouldn't almost anything be
worth while rather than let her down on this? If she could just announce
to 'em---- Well, practically any moderate amount, say as little as a
hundred, or even seventy-five----"

"Wait a minute!" Little sat up in bed, swung his legs over the edge.
"Wait and I'll come down and announce it, myself. Just one moment, Mrs.
Little, and I'll----"

"Ripley, Ripley, please go to sleep!" the defeated lady besought him,
and fled. Before she'd quite closed the door he heard Goody's voice in
the hall outside: "Mother! Did he promise he----" Mrs. Little said "_Sh!
Sh!_" and from those two he heard no more that night.

Downstairs the stricken piano wires leaped in their tin death-song; a
saxophone and a clarinet squealed exorbitantly; the percussion
instruments rattled, boomed, banged and crashed; elephantine thumpings
shook hardwood floors, and porcelain fell inconsequently upon a marble
hearth. Upstairs, in Ripley Little's room, two moods fought for the
mastery, and one of them, in spite of everything, was
self-congratulatory. "Did their worst!" The sense of satisfaction became
murmurously vocal. "Did their worst; but I stuck it out, jabjam it, I
stuck it out!"

The other mood, opposing this, was one of anxiety for the future. He
knew what Goody'd do. She'd never give up getting that subscription from
him, never! Goody was going to raise the jabjam helm with him, and if
she came down to breakfast in the morning it would start right there and
then.




CHAPTER XXV


He was seldom more mistaken. Goody did appear at the breakfast table,
just before he rose from it; her gentle manner and the unbelievable
words she spoke set him into the midst of mystery. "Poor Father!" Goody
said. "Mother told me you weren't feeling very well last night, and I'm
terribly sorry if all that noise downstairs disturbed you; but I
couldn't very well help it--for a while at least. I was afraid the rest
would want to stay and dance some more after Miss Wanstreet and her
party left, so I got them all to trail along and see them off at the
flying field, and I do hope after that you got some sleep and feel
better this morning. Do you, Father?"

Amazed, he responded, "Yes, Goody, thank you," and went to his work
wondering when the attack would begin. It didn't begin at all. Another
peaceful period of days elapsed; Goody looked thoughtful at times but
was placid and in his presence failed to mention either a subscription
or her flown-away friends.

"What's she up to?" he asked his wife. "I can't make head nor tail of
it. I suppose she's putting in a good deal of time organizing for the
great movement, is she?"

"Well--no, I don't think she is," Mrs. Little answered, looking
noncommittal. "She's seemed rather to lose interest in it."

"But why? I never saw her more excited over anything. You mean she's let
it all peter out?"

"Well--rather, I believe. You see, at her age, Ripley, they do get
enthused rather easily and often forget it pretty soon afterward. I'd
just forget it, too, if I were you, dear."

This was all the satisfaction his puzzlement obtained from his wife;
but, baffled, he felt there was more to the matter. Goody's impulses
weren't so hysterically brief as all that, and he wanted the answer. He
got it from Cousin Olita, who never liked to keep anything to herself,
and, alone with him for half an hour about a week after the visitation,
asked herself, "Why not be really entertaining?"

"I notice, Cousin Ripley," she said aloud, "that you often look at Goody
lately in a wondering sort of way. Is it because you don't understand
why she made such a to-do over Miss Wanstreet and that movement they
were talking so much about and then stopped all of a sudden right away?
Is maybe something like that on your mind, Cousin Ripley?"

"Oh, well--I don't know but it might be sometimes."

"I thought Goody acted rather strangely about it, myself." Cousin
Olita's manner was cosily confidential. "She doesn't know I know because
she didn't suppose Cousin Wilma'd tell me what she told her; but I
happened to hear some of it while she was telling Cousin Wilma and so of
course, later on, Cousin Wilma saw there wasn't any use not telling me
the rest of it. But you'll have to keep it to yourself, Cousin Ripley."

"I will. Keep what to myself?"

"Why, all of it, Cousin Ripley. I mean from both Cousin Wilma and Goody.
Myself, I simply can't see why Goody should have been so shocked and
upset; but maybe it's because at her age they're really stricter in
their ideas than the way they carry on would make anybody expect. But
anyhow she was, Cousin Ripley."

"You say something upset Goody?"

"So it seems," Cousin Olita said. "It must be because at their age they
don't see the romance of it when it happens to older people. When I was
a young, young girl myself I remember that romances among anybody over
thirty or thirty-five seemed to me terribly out of place. So when Mrs.
Pologa told Goody----"

"Mrs. who?" Little interrupted. "You mean the one with the angry-looking
eyes that Wilma said turned out to be such a dancer?"

"Dance!" Cousin Olita exclaimed. "_Did_ she? I wasn't exactly supposed
to be of the party when it got that late; but I simply couldn't tear
myself away. First she danced and then she---- Well, there was a good
deal of champagne left over from the tea cocktails and she---- Well, it
seems she always needs a good deal to work up her best dancing on, and
then afterwards it seems to kind of hit her and she gets sentimental.
She got that way with Goody just before they left, and told her about
the romance she's having. Really it ought to be a play and get put on
the stage, Cousin Ripley."

"It ought? What ought?"

"Why, this situation she told Goody about. Think of the romance of it,
Cousin Ripley--their all traveling round together working for the good
of the public; I didn't quite understand that part of it--but you can
see it's sincere anyhow."

"Yes; I don't doubt that," Ripley Little said. "Not for a minute."

"And think of what goes on under the surface!" Cousin Olita exclaimed.
"You see, Cousin Ripley, Miss Wanstreet and Mr. Berger are absolutely
devoted to each other and want to get married, and Mrs. Pologa and Mr.
Horgish are head over heels in love; but they're all four the very best
friends in the world and wrapped up in the movement and want to help
each other. But you see Miss Wanstreet and Mr. Berger are the ones that
have the money, and Mr. Horgish and Mrs. Pologa wouldn't have anything
to live on, so they want to get Mr. Horgish established in a really
important position of some kind, because he has such a remarkable mind,
of course, before they go ahead and all get married the way they want
to. You get the drama of it, don't you, Cousin Ripley?"

"Yes," Ripley Little said. "I think I do. You say Goody was shocked when
Mrs. Pologa told her about it?"

"Yes. She told Cousin Wilma she didn't show it right then but got to
thinking about it and decided she didn't feel so much like going ahead
pushing the movement too energetically any more. You'll be careful,
Cousin Ripley, won't you, not to let her see, or Cousin Wilma either,
that now you know about it?"

"Yes, I'll be careful," Little said. A weight had been upon him; but it
began to lift. Perhaps these young people nowadays had some sense after
all; perhaps they sometimes even knew how not to be taken in by things
their parents didn't know how to protect them from. It was a reassuring
thought and remained with him until Cousin Olita, after a meditative
pause, spoke again.

"Of course I wouldn't suggest it to Goody," she said; "but after all I
don't see why she should be so critical. Love's always understood to be
the highest function of man, isn't it? But the different ages don't seem
to understand each other when they have it. For instance, the other day
I mentioned that Mrs. Watson's uncle had lost his wife and was coming to
spend the rest of the summer with her and Mr. Watson--a really lovely
man named Mr. Carol Ladd Wheeling from Maukegan, Mrs. Watson says--and
when I merely mentioned that when he gets over his loss he might think
of marrying again, both Goody and Filmer hooted with laughter at the
idea, and the only reason on earth they were so amused is he's a little
over sixty. Yet Goody doesn't think it's the slightest bit funny, the
longing way Norman Peel looks at her through his spectacles, and
Filmer'd be furious if I dared to say a single word about how he runs to
Antoinette Fry's the minute he finishes every meal. Don't you think
that's terribly inconsistent, Cousin Ripley?"

"Norman Peel!" Ripley Little said. "Antoinette Fry!"

These were the only words he uttered in his present parting from Cousin
Olita; but they conveyed all of his unjust thoughts about the two
persons mentioned.

Goody might have borne with him if she'd heard him; but Filmer'd have
been sore stricken had he been made aware of the inflections used by his
father whenever pronouncing the loved name of Antoinette Fry. Filmer
thought that name rich and tenderly sonorous, and, at the very moment
when his father now uttered it, Filmer was slouching, chewing nothing,
and arm-swinging along the old familiar sidewalk that led to the third
yard northward of his own.

"Antoinette Fry," the lad coincidentally said to himself, in a tone as
different from his father's as a rose from a dead fish. "Antoinette
Fry!" Then, at a distance of about sixty yards from Antoinette's gate,
his advancing steps came to a tentative stop: a large and shining
automobile was standing at the curb before that gate, and an imposing
elderly woman was just stepping into this impressive car.

A liveried chauffeur helped her, and Filmer stood watching reverently.
Filmer had no personal acquaintance with the enclosed cold-looking
white-haired lady; but in her he recognized a terrifying yet blessed
being--Antoinette Fry's grandmother. All of Antoinette's relatives had
become for him august, dismaying and yet inexpressibly dear. As the car
moved away it seemed to ride in a golden haze shot with lightnings.

Filmer, emotional, walked on, and as he came to the Frys' hedge he heard
voices that he knew and others strange to him. Then he saw the charming
small blonde head of Antoinette, the uncouth heads of Charlsworth Beck,
Bill and old Slops, but not the head of Ellie Turner. Instead, he beheld
two unknown shiny brunette heads, female. Moreover, Antoinette caught
sight of the advancing tousled head of Filmer, and came skipping to the
gate in the hedge.

"Filmer Little!" she cried softly. "Does your ear ever pain you, Filmer?
I mean the one that happened the Fourth of July? I want you to meet my
two darling cousins from Hammondsville, Myrtle and Cora. They're
_awf'ly_ cute gals, Filmer, terribly witty and you'll just adore them!"

Filmer already had doubts. "I don't know if I will, Antoinette. I'm
not--not exactly like all these other guys, Antoinette; I don't make a
goon of myself over every new dame I see."

"But you will over Cora and Myrt, Filmer. They don't care what they say
and they're terribly severe. Ellie got mad and went home because she
heard Myrt telling Cora she thought Ellie was common. You mustn't get so
goofy over 'em, though, that you forget _me_, Filmer. Come on in and
meet 'em."

Filmer, serious, came through the gateway, and she performed the
ceremony: "Myrt, this is one of my very best friends, Mr. Filmer Little,
and you too, Cora. He had the most awful time with his ear I was telling
you about; but it's all well now."

Myrtle was sixteen, Cora only fourteen, neither being very pretty; and
Filmer, standing before them, enfeebled by a suitor's bashfulness, felt
that they were looking at him satirically. Charlsworth Beck, Bill and
old Slops, already familiar with Myrtle and Cora, laughed crudely,
bumped into Filmer, pushed their knuckles into his back and ribs.

"Curtsy or something, can't you?" they said to him. "Shake hands with
Myrt and Cora; they won't bite you. Tickle 'em; they're both ticklish.
Show 'em which ear you got the skyrocket in; they'll be crazy about
you."

Bill and Slops and Charlsworth made utter buffoons of themselves; and
the afternoon, beginning thus poorly, did not improve. Antoinette
invited the four boys to accompany her and her cousins to the movies;
but when the little party reached the sidewalk Filmer found himself
shunted to the rear with young Cora. She walked dawdlingly, humming
loudly, picking dandelions from grass plots beside the pavement, forming
a wreath of them, and paying no attention to Filmer. She made him feel
criticized and uncomfortable just when he was doing his best to be
sociable with her because she was Antoinette's cousin.

"Well, well!" he said, laughing unnaturally in order to sound cordial.
"So you're related to Antoinette, are you? Well, well!"

"What's funny about that?" young Cora inquired in a hard little voice.
"Give us a tell."

"Oh, nothing," he said. "I didn't mean it was funny. I just meant so
you're Antoinette's cousin."

"Oh, so I am, am I? I am so, am I? Well, well!"

"What?"

"Nothing, Big Boy."

She began to hum again and there was no further conversation during the
walk to Zorky's Rialto Neighborhood Theater. Inside, he and Cora
couldn't get near Antoinette, Myrtle, Bill, Slops and Charlsworth, but
could see that they were all having a happy time together and eating
something. Afterward, the walk home was similar. Filmer, though he made
every exertion, again found himself--he didn't know how--walking behind
with young Cora, who renewed her interest in dandelions and grass plots.

"In Hammondsville where Myrt and I live," she told Filmer, toward the
close of their silent companionship, "the boys all got zig--anyways a
little!"

"What's zig?"

"It's what prob'ly you back numbers over here still call pep. In
Hammondsville it's zig and the boys in our crowd show some."

"Well----" Filmer said, suspecting that she meant to cast reflections
upon him, "Well, let 'em!"

Cora suddenly darted ahead and ran into Antoinette's yard, where the
others, already arrived, were making merry. Filmer, following, saw Cora
"whispering secrets" to Antoinette and Myrtle; then all three looked at
him and giggled. Myrtle and Cora repeated this derisive effect often:
they would confer together behind their hands, watching him with bright
malicious eyes; then they'd laugh half-hiddenly. Myrtle and Cora, in
fact, didn't enjoy being mere satellites and took it out on Filmer. He
seldom spoke, or even moved, without hearing the spiteful little sound
of their giggling. Longing to be elegant, romantic, aristocratically
humorous, he could only endure. To the rough twitting of Bill, Slops and
Charlsworth Beck, and to their jocose manhandling, all he could do was
to respond, "Can it, can't you? Listen, can't you can it? Can it, can't
you?"

"That's dated," Cora announced. "In Hammondsville we don't say 'can it'
any more--not since about sixty years ago. Whyn't you learn something,
sweetie?"

"Foolish question Number One," Myrtle said behind her hand, yet so that
everybody heard her. "Haven't you noticed the shape of his head?"

Animal-like, Bill and Charlsworth and Slops thrust hands in Filmer's
hair, rocked his head, yelped of discoveries there, while doggedly he
asked and asked if they never tired of clowning. Myrtle and Cora laughed
persecutingly.




CHAPTER XXVI


By the time Mrs. Fry called Antoinette and the two sisters indoors
Filmer had a burning feeling in his stomach, not imaginary. Then, all at
once, the world changed.

Myrtle and Cora ran into the house; Charlsworth, Slops and Bill went
whooping ahead down the street; but Filmer, lingering, saw Antoinette
turn at the front door and come back for a handkerchief she'd left on
the grass. He approached her sadly.

"Listen," he said, swallowing with some difficulty. "Antoinette, listen.
Listen, Antoinette. Antoinette, it looks like you've forgot that day you
said--you said I--said I was different from anybody.
You--you---- Listen, Antoinette, you treat me the worst of everybody."

"Why, Filmer Little, I don't either!" Antoinette, perfectly a belle,
knew how to keep them going; and it may be that after all she really did
rather like Filmer best. "What you think I left that handkerchief out
here for?"

"Not--not so I----"

"Yes!" she said enrapturingly. "So's maybe you'd notice it and wait till
I came for it."

"Oh, Antoinette!"

"I wanted to tell you good-by, Filmer."

"Good-by? What for, Antoinette?"

"Because Grandmother's going to take Myrtle and Cora and me to Lake
Opako for a month. We're leaving tomorrow morning. It's awf'ly nice up
there. Will you be sorry, Filmer?"

"Sorry? Oh----!" He began to swallow again, sand apparently.
"Antoinette, is this the last time I'll see you, the last time for
a--for a month?"

"It looks like it, Filmer."

"Oh, my!" he said. "Oh, my!"

"I tell you what you do, Filmer," Antoinette charmingly suggested,
stepping close to him. "In a few minutes Myrtle and Cora are going over
to Grandmother's for dinner and stay all night and I'm going for dinner
but coming home afterwards. You come over there about half-past nine and
come in the house like you just came to call on Myrt and Cora, and for
heaven's sake don't say you're there on purpose to walk home with me!
Grandmother's awf'ly strict; she lives in the past and'd have a fit! But
pretty soon after you get there I'll say I haf to be going, so then you
get up and say you haf to, too, and live right a couple doors from me,
so then I'll say all right, Grandmother won't need to send me in the
car, and she'll prob'ly say all right; so then you can bring me home,
Filmer. Doesn't this make it all right with you that I honestly think
you're different, Filmer?"

Filmer's chest seemed to become a beautiful balloon, lifting him.
"Where--where's your grandmother live, Antoinette?"

"Sixteen-four Buchanan Avenue. Be sure to be there by nine-thirt',
Filmer."

"Will I! Oh, Antoinette!"

Breathing heliotrope and violets, treading a musical sidewalk under
gilt-edged shade trees, Filmer went home to dinner. Antoinette was going
away--for a whole empty, empty month--but tonight, tonight he'd be with
her, free from Bill, from Charlsworth, from Slops. He'd be alone with
her in the summer night, all the way home from her grandmother's. At the
table, his father and mother, Cousin Olita and Goody looked altered;
they seemed to be heavy insensitive creatures grubbing dully through
underprivileged lives. He had scarcely a word for them, heard nothing
they said, and, at about half-past eight o'clock, as he went upstairs to
make improvements in his attire, he saw before him a kind of floating
radiance labeled in gold, "1604 Buchanan Ave."

Dressing in reverie, at intervals sitting on the edge of his bed for as
much as ten minutes with his mouth open and a garment partly on or
nearly off, he finally had himself into a fresh "sport shirt" open at
the throat, proving him an athlete, a thin blue jacket and his cleanest
and least bulbous white-flannel trousers. Eventually he drew upon his
feet his whitish buckskin shoes. That is, they were here and there
whiter than elsewhere, and, wishing to appear at his very best, he was
troubled by observing that they were streaked with grassy greens and
blobbed with dried oil that had been all the way through an automobile.

Filmer owned no remedying powder or fluid, but, remembering that his
sister did, went into her pretty room and turned on the light.
Indignant, he found that the closet where Goody kept her whitening was
locked; then his eye fell upon her dressing-table and an amethyst glass
bowl containing face powder and a large white powder puff. Relieved, he
sat upon the stool before Goody's dressing-table, dabbed the puff and
powder lavishly over his shoes, and was unduly satisfied with the
temporary result.

After this he did a number of things that would have seemed odd to his
father, for instance, and yet were entirely natural to Filmer's age and
sex.

Filmer, looking at himself in the clear mirror of the dressing-table,
applied the powder puff to his face and to most of his hair. He made
himself not so white as a clown but comparable. Then, solemn, he several
times used his fingers to turn up his nose and widen his mouth to the
last possible extremity. After that, he examined lengthily the maplike
inner linings of his lips and the under side of his tongue; then he just
sat looking at himself.

Here was nothing either of vanity or of a deliberate purpose to make use
of his face as when preparing it for the Annual Welfare Fund American
Costume Fair. Only during the last year or two had Filmer discovered, so
to speak, his face. He didn't think of his face either as beautiful or
as lacking in beauty; it just interested him. Also, he found a
fascination in experiment; that is, in seeing what could be done with
and to it. Sometimes he wouldn't think of his face for days, and then
without warning, alone with a mirror, he would have the spell upon him.

Seated at Goody's dressing-table, he wasn't thinking about what other
people thought of his face, not even thinking about what Antoinette Fry
might think of it; he was so lost in looking at it he didn't think of
Antoinette Fry at all. For the moment, even on the eve of her departure,
she was out of his system, as it were; and here was a difference between
him and his sister. When Goody thought she was in love with anybody she
thought so all the time. Filmer was in love with Antoinette Fry only
when he happened to think of her. Just now he had no thoughts except
about his face, and, although they were amorphous, he was absorbed in
his purely visual experience.

He opened an enameled box on the dressing-table and took from it an
eyebrow pencil with which he gave his upper lip a slight mustache. Then
he blackened his unimportant eyebrows and lashes with the pencil, used a
lipstick heavily and was also liberal with rouge upon his cheeks.
Fascinated by the alteration, seeming to have an almost entirely new
face, he strained his neck trying to see himself in profile.
Nevertheless, here was no effeminacy; Filmer was thoroughly masculine
and what he did this evening to his face he didn't do to be lovelier.
The final thing he did to it was with the lipstick: he dreamily
converted the lower part of his nose, when seen full front, into a large
round coral-colored polka dot.

After that, he thought perhaps he'd better wash off the artificialities;
but Cousin Olita was on her way upstairs singing, "In the gloaming, oh,
my darling----"

He jumped up, put out the light, and, not wishing to answer inquiries
about where he intended to go at this hour, or what he was doing in
Goody's room, waited for Cousin Olita to pass the open door. At the top
of the stairs, however, she paused to reply to a question from his
mother below. "Going to listen to my radio in bed," Cousin Olita called.
"It's twenty minutes after nine and the What They're Wearing program
comes on at half past."

"Oh, gosh!" Filmer gasped. "Twenty minutes after nine! Oh, my gosh!"

Cousin Olita didn't pass the doorway. Instead, she felt a draft, came
into the lightless room and closed an open window. "Not _too_ much air,
dearie," she said aloud, lovingly addressing the absent Goody, and,
while Filmer shrank against a wall, resumed her song. "Tum-ty-ump-ty,
best for you and best for me."

Singing, she went out, passed down the hall, entered her own door,
closed it behind her and sang louder, having given the unseen Filmer two
nervous shocks of a strength almost sufficient to erase from his mind
the sense of his present appearance--or, at least, anxiety about what
that appearance would be in a lighted place. Especially in hurried and
eventful moments, as his father often said of him, Filmer could be
careless about anything whatever, even things of the utmost importance
to himself; and he could go on being careless about them afterward.

"Twenty minutes after nine! Oh, my gosh!"

He dove into Goody's bathroom, fumbled for a towel, found one, wet it at
a spigot, scrubbed his face hard but too briefly in the dark. Then he
hurried silently to the back stairs, tiptoed down and diplomatically
left the house by means of the kitchen door.

...Having run most of the way, he came into Buchanan Avenue pantingly.
This was the town's most celebrated uncommercial thoroughfare; its lawns
were broader than elsewhere, its trees and shrubberies more impressive.
Through trembling leafage, lighted windows seemed to gleam from noble
heights; haughty residences appeared retired to intensely private
distances from the street, and Filmer unexpectedly found himself
disquieted.

Thus far unthinking, eager and bold, he now seemed a stranger, a small
one, in a chilly neighborhood presided over by a dear but disturbing
grandmother to whom Antoinette might never even have mentioned him.
Thoughtless confidence began to leak out of him and a dreadful
self-consciousness, anything but sustaining, to take its place. He
ceased to hurry, walked lingeringly.

At Antoinette's grandmother's would a foreign hostile type of manservant
open the door and inquire his business--or would Antoinette's august
grandmother herself perform that office? If so, in what words was he to
explain himself? Was he to say, if able to speak at all, "Listen, I'm
paying a call on Myrtle and Cora?" or, more economically, "Look, where's
Cora and Myrt?" And if the manservant or the grandmother said, "Cora and
Myrt WHO?" what could he reply, since he didn't know?

The little plan impulsively sketched by Antoinette in the afternoon now
all at once appeared formidable. Antoinette's grandmother was hers, not
his. Antoinette was accustomed to her grandmother and to 1604 Buchanan
Avenue. What appeared simple to Antoinette--dashing into 1604 Buchanan
Avenue and asking for Myrtle and Cora--began to seem to Filmer like the
Charge of the Light Brigade with nobody at all to ride back again.

He came to stone pillars, one of which bore a metal placard, "1604",
faintly glittering under the white-globed light of a street lamp; and
from here a driveway curved dimly between trees and clustered bushes to
the lighted doorway of a house that looked intentionally larger than
people's houses ought to be. Swallowing slowly and irregularly, he
passed between the gateposts and moved sluggishly toward the house; but,
at a distance of about thirty feet from the stone front steps, a
sensation that began at the back of his throat passed down his spine,
reached his feet and stopped their forward movement.

Antoinette was there, not far within that lighted doorway and the
lighted windows on both sides of it--and--and who else was there, too?
Cora and Myrt, certainly--Cora and Myrt with their bright ratlike little
eyes and spiteful titterings--and who else? Maybe there were callers in
there, grown people, maybe old people, maybe people forty and fifty
years old--maybe the grandmother was having a party. Filmer's voice was
glued down flat in his throat; but his still too warmly colored lips
faintly formed stricken words.

"Oh, my!"

Could he go in there and sit down among Antoinette's grandmother and old
people and wait for Antoinette to say it was about time to be getting
home? No, he could not. Maybe, though, there wasn't any party and
maybe--just maybe--Cora and Myrt and the grandmother had gone to bed.
Filmer's breath came back fitfully. Maybe Antoinette was sitting in
there all alone, waiting for him to ring the bell. Maybe! His legs
wouldn't ascend those steps until he knew, even if the rest of him
wanted to.

The shade of the open window nearest the doorway was up an inch or so
from the sill, leaving a bright horizontal strip crossed by vertical
slim shapes, the legs of a chair or table. Filmer crept forward, and,
standing tremulously upon tiptoe, applied one eye to this brilliant
aperture. Immediately his stomach seemed to fall away within him.

His appalled eye beheld not one but two populated interiors. In that
nearer to him, eight ladies--all old, all severe and all dressed up,
including the grandmother--sat silent at two card tables; and beyond,
through an open double doorway, Antoinette, Myrtle, Cora and two
youngish grown women, probably aunts, were seen to be solemnly drinking
lemonade and eating cake.

Filmer's supporting toes relaxed; so did his fingers upon the stone
window sill, and his eye descended from that overwhelming sight. If
Antoinette had thrown her glove into a cage of lions--well-trained
sea-lions--Filmer might have retrieved it for her; but she had giddily
asked too much of him. Like the traveler fascinated by horror who takes
one last look over the rim of the active volcano's crater before
fleeing, he raised himself again and set his eye to the horizontal strip
of bright window.

He was unaware of a slight rustling in a clump of bushes a little
distance behind him; but the sound was made by a large, middle-aged man
named Rennert, professionally a neighborhood night watchman. This
Rennert was sensitive about never having made an arrest; and of late, as
it happened, he was doubly so because of special complaints on the part
of his clients. He had become electrically upon the alert, when, from
across the street, he'd seen the slight figure of Filmer furtively
entering the driveway gates of 1604.

Officer Rennert, as he had once or twice been called because he
possessed a badge and a holstered weapon, had followed the hesitating
white trousers of Filmer through the shadows, and, nearing the house,
had concealed himself among hydrangeas. The second time Filmer applied
his eye to the window, however, Officer Rennert stole forward; then
leaped. Shouting hoarsely in the quiet night, he encircled the neck and
body of Filmer in ponderous, compressing arms, which to their owner
gratifyingly seemed to hold almost nothing.

"_Got_ you!" the watchman shouted. "Got you, Peeper! Tried your little
game in my territory just once too often. Knew I had you soon as I first
seen you, Mr. Peepin' Tom!"

"Don't!" Filmer said in a whispering voice. "Don't make such a noise! I
am not! I know her! I'm calling on her! Don't make such a noise!"

"Who won't?" the night watchman asked, naturally expansive in this his
almost only success. "Who won't make a noise? Claim you're callin' on
Mrs. Minchester Thomas, do you? Tell that to the Sergeant! Now just let
'em try to keep on sayin' Rennert ain't no good to his customers! Just
let 'em try to say it after this! Stop that! You want your wrist
twisted?"

"No," Filmer said. "You let me go! What you----"

"What'm I goin' do? I'm goin' to take you in there and 'phone
headquarters I----"

"You're not! Me in _there!_" Filmer's squirming, inspired by a supreme
revulsion, surpassed the human. Harder to hold than even Pussy, he broke
away, ran for more than life, and the night watchman, cursing, followed.
If Filmer hadn't been wearing white trousers he might have made good his
escape; perhaps he could have done it if the back door of his father's
house hadn't been found open by Almatina, who locked it. As it was, he
wasted time on the door, and the hard-panting Rennert laid hands on him
there.

"Listen!" Filmer entreated. "This is Mr. Ripley Little's house and
he----"

"I know doggone well it is," the night watchman said. "I'm goin' to take
you in here first and give Mr. Ripley Little a chance to charge you;
then I'm goin' to drag you back to where I got you and show you to Mrs.
Minchester Thomas, and then I'm goin' to call headquarters, and
then----"

"Don't!" Filmer begged. "Don't!"

"_Won't_ I, though!"




CHAPTER XXVII


What dinned loudest into Filmer's wakeful mental ear after he'd been
sent to bed was the word "arrested". This was partly the effect of the
number of times his father'd said it, keeping it up long after the
officious Rennert's grudging departure. The different ways in which the
word had been said were also repetitive in the sorely plastic mind of
Filmer: "Only fourteen years old and already he's been arrested!" "Our
only son, arrested!" "The only member of the Little family ever
arrested!" "Out in the night without permission and gets himself
arrested!" "Arrested at Mrs. Minchester Thomas's!" "Arrested for peeking
in Mrs. Minchester Thomas's windows!" "Arrested! Arrested! Arrested..."
The doomful word, uttered interminably in his father's voice, became an
ache in Filmer's head upon the unrestful pillow. From downstairs he
could hear at intervals sounds that suggested distant oratory and
discussion; he was willing to bet they were all still jabbering,
"Arrested! Arrested! Arrested!"

They weren't confining themselves to that, however. His father paced the
floor, talking straight along no matter how often interruptions were
attempted by his wife or by Goody, who'd just come in, or by Cousin
Olita, who'd rushed downstairs in a rose chiffon wrapper upon hearing
the uproar made by Ripley Little, Rennert and Filmer when the night
watchman dragged the son of the house into the front hall.

"I fail to comprehend your expression," Ripley Little said, pausing
before Goody and referring to a risible movement of her facial contours.
"I don't care to see you looking as if you were trying not to laugh. I
don't care for it, understand; I don't care for it! That jabjam night
watchman may have exceeded his duty because, as he said, there'd been
complaints of a Peeping Tom in that neighborhood lately; but the fact
remains that getting arrested isn't a laughing matter. He swore Filmer
told him he was paying a call upon Mrs. Minchester Thomas. Upon Mrs.
Minchester Thomas! Was that sane, at his age, to tell anybody such a
story? Was it?"

Goody's lips quivered. "Father, how often must we tell you she's
Antoinette Fry's grandmother?"

"Was it sane?" Ripley Little continued vehemently, pacing again. "Even
at his age was it sane? That night watchman insisted again and again
that Filmer swore to him he was calling on Mrs. Minchester Thomas
herself. Then look at the state he was in! Calling _any_where with no
necktie and his face smeared with every color of the rainbow. He claimed
he'd washed; but who could believe him? Then what was his answer when we
asked him why--_why_ he had to go peeking in at Mrs. Minchester Thomas's
windows? To see who was there, he told us--to see who was there! What's
the jabjam sense in that?"

"_I_ know," Cousin Olita said. "At least I think I do. Filmer wouldn't
say so; but _I_ think he wanted to find out if Antoinette Fry was
there."

"Why, jabjammit," Ripley Little said, paying no attention to Cousin
Olita's theory, "if I'd ever thought I'd live to have a son that an
officer of the law would drag into my house, smeared all over with
mascara and lipstick and arrested--_arrested!_----"

                 *        *        *        *        *

...Filmer, coming down late in the morning, purposely very late, met
Cousin Olita in the front hall, and, observing that she looked at him
oddly, stopped and spoke sharply to her. "Listen, are you or aren't you
supposed to be the well-bred woman? Weren't you ever trained not to
stand in a person's way goggling him in the face?"

"Poor Filmer!" Cousin Olita said. "Filmer, did you know little Ellie
Turner's aunt lives next door to Mrs. Minchester Thomas and that
nosey-parker night watchman is a friend of Ellie's aunt's cook and went
back there last night and told this cook all about what happened and she
told Ellie Turner's aunt and _she_ told Mrs. Turner by telephone, and so
Ellie heard all about it first thing this morning, and so, Filmer, young
Charlsworth Beck and your friend young Willie Hormer and that
singsong-voiced young Ellers boy you call Slops and----"

"What about them?" Filmer said. "What about them?"

"Why, they've all been here looking for you, Filmer," Cousin Olita
informed him. "I thought you'd better know because I'm afraid most
likely they're feeling anxious to talk it over with you, your getting
arrested and everything."

"_When?_" Suddenly Filmer was filled with fury. Here, he thought, was
something he could deal with. "_When_ were they here? Where are they?
Where's any Bill and Slops and Charl----"

"Well, I wouldn't bother with them, Filmer, if I were you. When I came
in just now I noticed they seemed to be laughing and joking on the
sidewalk a little way up the street; but----"

"Oh, they are, are they?" Filmer, reckless with anger, forgot his
breakfast. "Out there, are they? I'll show 'em!"

Cousin Olita thought she ought to tell him something she hadn't yet
mentioned, and she put forth a detaining hand; but he rushed stormily by
her and from the house. After all, she felt then, maybe it was just as
well that she hadn't spoken. "He always gets so mad at me," Cousin Olita
thought, "whenever I'm the least bit critical of him." Humming "In the
Gloaming", she went upstairs for her knitting, came down again, went
outdoors and sat in one of the garden chairs. Sounds of mingled
altercation and gaiety came soon to her ears, and then whoopings and
cacklings from nearer by. Filmer was returning home, accompanied by a
group of active young associates, three boys and a joyous little fat
girl. He was walking backward, of necessity, because the others were all
trying to dance into him.

He'd misguided himself in hurrying out of the house before Cousin Olita
had been able to impart what no doubt she'd have mentioned eventually.
Upon retiring last night Filmer had felt no desire to see a mirror, and,
when he rose this morning, he'd been too preoccupied for even the
slightest customary ablution. Until a few minutes ago he hadn't any idea
of what his face still looked like--something that Charlsworth Beck,
Bill, old Slops, and Ellie Turner were telling him and telling him and
telling him.

It was hours before Filmer remembered that he had one alleviation to
console him somewhat in his troubles: Antoinette Fry had been motored
away by her grandmother, Mrs. Minchester Thomas, with Myrtle and Cora,
at five o'clock that morning, too early to hear of the awful things that
had happened to him and were continuing to happen to him. He had a bad
day and spent the whole evening of it in his room composing a letter,
sometimes applying himself to a dictionary he'd brought upstairs under
his coat with as much care as if it had been Bokakio. He'd obtained
Antoinette's address from her mother, by telephone.

    DEAR ANTOINETTE

    _I would not wish you to think I did not come because I got over
    there but not having the information of Cora and Mirts last name
    to announce my call at the front door with I decided I better
    desist so do not think I did not wish to. There is no news
    around here since you left here except I can not recommend the
    conversation of some of my friends though I would prefer to
    designate these individuals as so called acquaintances instead
    as their conversation is nothing but so called witticisms and
    dumb cracks like you had to listen to yourself so often before
    going. Their incorrigibility of dumbness brings me fatigue and
    there are times when anybody would like to get out of this old
    town a good while. The way I am feeling that is what I would
    prefer. When are you coming home Antoinette? In frankness this
    town makes me sick. I am going to ask my mother to influence my
    father to let me go to a camp maybe the same Slops Ellers is
    going to for August though his intelligibility is so weak and
    incorrect I certainly do not expect to enjoy his conversation
    during the trip or while there._

    _I hope you are having a nice time at Lake Opako but I am not
    having any here Antoinette--but I hope in the midst of it all
    you remember what you said about your noticing about me being
    you know what Antoinette if you meant it as I doubtlessly hope
    you do Antoinette_

    _Cordially yours_

    FILMER LITTLE

Filmer's proposal of camp life for the remaining month of summer was at
first received by his father with skepticism and denial. Filmer wouldn't
know how to take care of himself, Ripley Little insisted--a boy who
began to get himself arrested before completing his fifteenth year would
probably land in jail even on his way to the camp. He wouldn't know how
to travel such a distance; he didn't know how to do anything at all
without getting himself into trouble. The plan, however, was warmly
pressed, not only by Filmer's mother but by Goody, who had now become
Ripley Little's favorite. Goody said she happened to know all about the
Pine Trail Boys' Camp, where Filmer's friend, young Slops, was going; it
was one of the best in all New England, Goody announced authoritatively,
and the two boys traveling together would be safe.

She carried the day; and Filmer, after a last stroll in the twilight and
a final lingeringly wistful gaze over the Frys' hedge into a speaking
emptiness, came home to interfere loudly with his mother's and Cousin
Olita's packing for him. He made such a fuss that Cousin Olita abandoned
her share of the task: she'd have to stop anyhow, though, she explained,
because she was already late for an appointment to make a fourth at
bridge with Mr. and Mrs. Watson and Mrs. Watson's uncle, Mr. Carol Ladd
Wheeling. Bridge, Cousin Olita said, a little consciously, was the only
thing that now distracted Mr. Wheeling's mind--at least so Mrs. Watson
told her.

Filmer's parting with his father was almost formal, both being too manly
not to conceal whatever emotion they experienced, and Filmer was
relieved by the fact that Ripley Little, curbing himself, didn't even
once introduce the word "arrested" into his expressions of farewell.




CHAPTER XXVIII


August arrived upon the city, bringing along its customary
record-breaking wave of humid hotness. Prostrations were as usual,
people with the best of tempers lost parts of them, and, at half-past
eight on the third morning of the great heat, Ripley Little rose from
his breakfast and struck the table a blow that made silver hum and
porcelain clink.

"Dot dabble it!" he shouted. "Stop trying to excuse it! Helen's belts,
this bob dand house is too much for me, all busted up again! If he ever
sets another foot in it---- Well, take your choice, either him or me,
Mrs. Little; either him or me!"

"But, Ripley, please! He's really the nicest of----"

"And the best-looking, too," Cousin Olita added. "I've always thought
Goody was making a great mistake in preferring Norman Peel to him. He's
so good-natured and has such a nice figure and hair and----"

"Take your choice, that's all!" Ripley Little said. "Him or me, Mrs.
Little! I'm going down to my place of business and stay there night and
day till either I get dragged to Leavenworth for leaving out a comma or
you can think of some jam good reason why I should return to such a hod
banned wrecked home as this. I bid you good-by, job jam it, Mrs. Little,
I bid you good-by!"

He stamped out of the room and, still talking, out of the house. Mrs.
Little followed him, twittering, as far as the front door; then, when
the reverberation after its closing gave way to shocked silence, she
stood looking at the formerly graceful newel post of the broad stairway.
This post, splintered, leaned at an unpleasant angle, and so did the
adjacent balusters, giving the whole stairway a drunken appearance.

"Oh, my!" Mrs. Little murmured.

"The carpenter promised he'd be here by ten," a sweet voice called
reassuringly, from above, and Goody, in pajamas, descended the stairs.
"Was the newel post what he was jobjamming about, in particular,
Mother?"

"No. Heavens, no!" Mrs. Little sank upon a stiff-backed hall chair.
"Goody, he said if Hamilton Ellers ever sets one single clumsy foot on
these premises again----"

"That's unjust!" Goody cried. "His feet are not, and my sympathies are
entirely on his side. I let him try to back into the garage last night
from an acute angle because everybody was taunting him with being a
rotten driver and he bet two dollars he could do it. The only reason it
wasn't a success and made the cracking noise Father came to the upstairs
back hall window about was it was dark and the rest were all yelling,
trying to make him lose his bet, and they did. It was a pure accident
and so was everything else, because when we came in the house they were
ribbing him about the door and he got into a broil with Bull Thetford
and Cuckoo and Screwball and----"

"With Cuckoo and Screwball?" Mrs. Little interrupted, shocked. "Fighting
with girls?"

"No! Not fighting, Mother; it was all just fun. But he reached up for
something to hold to when they tried to throw him down and happened to
catch Father's grandmother's picture's frame and it just accidentally
hit that ugly old vase on the pedestal and got the little hole in her
face when it fell down. So then they caromed out into the hall, all
scrabbled together, and landed against the stairway balustrade--and that
newel post is bad architecturally anyhow because it's too slim--so these
other cracking sounds began--and that's when Father chose to commence
his awful roarings upstairs and we looked up and saw him starting down
in his nightgown, blaming poor Ham for everything, and everybody hurried
off home because they certainly didn't want to stay and hear me
mortified."

"Your poor father!" Mrs. Little said. "Goody, he says now that of all of
'em not Norman Peel but Hamilton Ellers is the worst and he----"

"That's simply Father's patter!" Goody cried hotly. "They aren't any of
'em the 'worst'!" She uttered a sound like an angry sob. "Father's
practically driven him out of town!"

"Who, Goody? Who's he driven----"

"He has, Mother! Ham just telephoned me he thought he'd better keep out
of Father's sight a while and said he didn't believe he cared to stick
around and listen to the new nicknames the crowd's worked up on him out
of what Father said he was last night. Ham's going on a long visit right
away to stay up to when college opens, and by now he's practically out
of town. I never knew anything more unjust than his being made to feel
that way!"

"Your poor father!" Mrs. Little said again. "I can't remember seeing him
in such a state."

"But he is every week or so, Mother. When a man's got a temper like----"

"I know, Goody; but it doesn't have much chance to get better. He says
what with Hitler not stopped yet over there and Ham Ellers and Norman
Peel the same over here, even a man's own stairway isn't safe. He needs
a change and I wish I could get him away."

"Away?" Goody was heartily encouraging. "That's a _great_ idea, Mother!
Splendid! Get him to take a nice long motor trip somewhere with you."

"He wouldn't," Mrs. Little explained. "I know what he'd say. He'd ask me
what we'd find left of the house when we got back. You'd have to come,
too, Goody."

"_Me?_ On a motor trip in the same car with _Father_?" Goody's laughter
was derisive; but Mrs. Little was sometimes, in her own flaccid way, a
persistent woman, and the weather helped her. After three more days of
it Ripley Little, bogged down and melting behind his ears, was willing
to go anywhere else. Goody, yielding suddenly, consented to a motor trip
on the condition that it be through quaint old New England.

For one thing, she urged, they could look in on Filmer at the Pine Trail
Boys' Camp and see if the water he had to bathe in was as cold as he
said on the postal. New England, thus, was settled upon; though Goody
was overruled in another matter. Ripley Little declined to travel in the
new convertible on the ground that in hot weather it was too narrow for
any party inclusive of Cousin Olita, and upon this point Mrs. Little
sided firmly with her husband. At the last moment, however, Cousin Olita
decided not to go because the house needed to be looked after by
somebody more responsible than just the servants, she explained
conscientiously, and Mrs. Watson had been begging her not to leave
because it would make the neighborhood so lonely.

"So there!" Goody said. "Now there's no reason we can't take the
convertible."

She lost again. Her father declined to use the convertible because it
was green, because it was a gas-eater and he didn't intend to have the
government and Mr. Ickes accusing him, and because Goody'd want to have
the top down in the hot sun.

All in all the pleasure journey didn't begin serenely. At the hour set
for departure Ripley Little, in fast-wilting white clothes, stood beside
his middle-aged sedan, making a speech to Cousin Olita about women--the
numbers of bags, baskets, thermos bottles, pasteboard hatboxes they
can't travel without, even after the baggage compartment's choked with
luggage--when Goody came brightly from the house, leading Pussy by a new
green leather leash. Between Ripley Little and Pussy the feud caused by
fundamentally opposing ideologies had never much abated; Little at once
declared that he wouldn't go if Pussy did. Goody said she wouldn't if
Pussy didn't--she couldn't risk leaving him because Cousin Olita was
certain to be too busy over that old gentleman next door, and Gentry,
unwatched, might try to get even with Pussy for a lot of things. Goody
further insisted that there'd be plenty of room because Pussy could sit
next to her on top of the two suitcases beside the driver's seat, which
of course she was going to occupy.

"Drive?" Little exclaimed. "You expect to drive? I wouldn't go a step. I
wouldn't----"

"All right!" Goody said, and added that if she didn't drive she, twice
as much as he, wouldn't go a step.

He made another speech: subject, Young People's Driving--Goody's in
particular. "I wouldn't sit in a car with you or any of your friends at
the wheel for money the size of this week's government budget!" he said,
approaching his climax. "Every public highway's your private race track
and you're convinced that nobody else has any business to use it. What
courtesy do you ever show other vehicles? When do you ever realize that
a little patience and courtesy would avoid an accident? If somebody's in
front of you, you honk your job jammed horn as if he didn't have any
more rights than a spider; then you zizz round him so close you take his
mudguards off and send the bill to Father! If it's the last thing I ever
swear, I won't go if that jam Pussy does, and either I drive every inch
of this trip or I don't start. Why, dobdab it----"

"Now, Ripley, please!" Mrs. Little begged. "Look what you're doing to
your collar!"

She proposed a series of compromises, and, after half an hour, both
father and daughter thought they'd won; the overheated sedan rolled
crossly out of the driveway. Little sat at the wheel, repulsing with his
right elbow the sidling advances of two suitcases and a hatbox, and, in
the rear, Goody was already telling him which way to turn. Mrs. Little,
silently gymnastic, was trying to keep a guarantee to hold Pussy on her
lap the whole way, and Pussy was showing his determination not to sit
there.

Before noon Goody had often said that the next time her father insulted
her she'd get out, and Ripley Little had told her again and again that
if he heard one more word of backseat driving, or if that jam Mongolian
screech-hound couldn't be quiet, he'd stop at the next railroad station
and go home by train. Pussy was, in fact, a poor motorist. There are
dogs who love traveling by automobile; but he wasn't one of them,
couldn't accustom his nerves to it, and, moreover, had a bedrock
conviction that he ought to bark terrorizingly at everything unfamiliar
to him. As everything he saw after he left home was unfamiliar, and as
not even Goody had any real influence with him, he gave himself
infrequent intervals of rest.

"He's a jobjam Nazi," Ripley Little said bitterly. "He thinks he has to
soften 'em first by barking his dobdab black heart out!"

When the travelers reached the destination they'd appointed for the
first night away from home, Ripley Little, his ears ringing with Pussy
and his whole being worn down with repulsing advice and sliding baggage,
announced that although the town they were now in was notoriously
uninteresting he intended to remain there for the rest of his vacation.
Mrs. Little, pleading, proved to him by the map that within another
twenty-four hours or so they would be in the heart of Old New England,
with all its quaint inns, odd characters, rambling country byways and
old sea captains. He told her to tell her old sea captains to go sit on
a tack and said he was jam well tired of odd characters in his own home
town. However, after keeping him long awake with gentle-voiced
persuasions, she prevailed upon him to promise that if she'd quit
whispering and go to sleep a few minutes he'd do any jobjam thing on
earth.

It was on the second day after this that the Littles found themselves
fairly in the midst of the land they'd sought, though only the map said
so. What they seemed really to be in the midst of was a large part of
the populations of Ohio, Illinois, Arkansas, Michigan, West Virginia,
Wyoming and other states, in automobiles, looking for quaint inns, odd
characters and old sea captains, though by no means for rambling byways.
The three-ply road was one long purgatory of cars going and cars coming
as fast and as insultingly as they could. The weather was hotter than it
had been at home, and the afternoon air was burnt gas mixed with
fried-clam smell. The scenery consisted of signboards, filling stations,
overnight cabins, lobster restaurants, antique shops, small graveyards,
front yard displays of red and yellow toys, hitch-hiking soldiers, beer
shacks and fried-clam stands.

Ripley Little had eaten fried clams for lunch, and the incessant vapors
that came from others being fried had begun to help his own to disagree
with him, when Pussy tried twice to jump clear over him because a dog
looked out of the rear window of the next car just ahead. Mrs. Little
fought Pussy, won temporarily, and muffled him under a writhing rug.
"Oh, dear me!" she said. "Goody, he put his hat back on without a single
word. It's a bad sign."

Goody was preoccupied with a map. "Milford," she murmured, and looked
up. "It's only thirty miles ahead. The map's blurred; I thought it was
eighty. Now it's only the middle of the afternoon; but we've simply got
to make him stop and stay overnight at Milford."

"Milford? What for, Goody?"

"Because Milford's not so _very_ far from the Pine Trail Boys' Camp, and
besides that it's the very rarest old New England village there is,
Mother. It's got a darling old inn and furniture and elms and ocean and
everything!"

"He won't," Mrs. Little said. "Fernvale's fixed in his brain for
tonight. He won't."

"You've got to make him, Mother!" Goody looked excited but kept her
voice lowered, though Pussy had his head free and was incessantly vocal
again. "Milford's just as near Filmer's camp as Fernvale is and--well,
frankly, Mother, Milford's the most important place on the whole trip."

"Why is it? I never heard of it before, Goody."

"Mother, I might as well tell you now, confidentially, and get it over:
there's a really lovely summer crowd at Milford and they're having a
party for me tonight at the Milford Inn. Milford's really where I've
been heading this trip for all along. Hamilton Ellers is getting the
party up, Mother."

"Who? Oh, dear!" Mrs. Little said, losing her breath. "Oh, dear me!"

"I've been in--in communication with Ham pretty often," Goody admitted,
emotionally. "He's visiting a quaint old uncle of his at Milford and the
truth is it's why I consented to take this trip. His uncle simply dotes
on him because he's named for him, and Ham always visits him when
something disagreeable happens at home. I was talking to him over
long-distance while I took that walk with Pussy in Tidport at lunchtime,
Mother, and he told me about the party he's been getting up for me at
Milford and said he'll stay out of Father's sight until we get him to
bed or something."

"He'll see him," the dismayed mother predicted. "I just know he'll see
him! Goody, I'm all confused: I'd been thinking---- We'd all been
thinking it was Norman Peel you----"

"Never mind!" Goody said primly. "Never mind, if you please, Mother.
Norman's all very well in his way. That is, he has his good points; I
mean he's very nice."

"For your father you mean?" Mrs. Little's voice quavered. "Oh, Goody, I
do hope he'll never find _that_ out!"

"Why should he?" Goody asked, surprised that Mrs. Little even raised
this point. "Everything will be completely jake if you merely manage to
make him stop in Milford, Mother. Besides the party, Ham's arranged a
surprise that----" Here Goody, feeling that she'd already told her
mother enough, checked her tongue abruptly, yielding the floor to Pussy.

"A surprise, Goody?" Mrs. Little got the rug momentarily over Pussy's
head again. "A surprise besides Ham Ellers? Oh, dear! What?"

"It wouldn't be one if I told you! It's partly for you, too, Mother."

"Oh, dear me!"

"The important thing," Goody said, "is all up to you. It's simply when
we reach Milford you've got to make him stay there."

"Oh, dear!" Mrs. Little fought Pussy and looked woefully at the sturdy
and discouraging shoulders of her husband. "Oh, dear me!"




CHAPTER XXIX


Those sturdy shoulders heaved; one arm and hand, reaching backward over
the top of the front seat, sought blindly for Pussy, but missed him.
"Can't you keep him quiet just _one_ minute--out of all eternity?"
Little said. "If I ever take a jabjam motor trip with a dog again and
two suitcases in my ribs and a hatbox falling on me every seven seconds,
may Og, Gog and Magog strike me dead in my tracks!"

His temper had been accumulating, so to speak, ever since he'd left
home. Moreover, the heat was not to be borne, especially not by a
stoutish man. He sweltered, itched and hated--hated the clams within him
and the frying ones outside. He hated Pussy, the cars that edged him
over and those that he edged over; he especially hated those that
cometed out, going in the opposite direction, and missed him by
microscopic miracles. He hated bicyclists who insolently forced him to
spare their lives by risking his own; he hated bullheaded pedestrians
who walked in the roadway as if they didn't give a cuss whether he was
coming or not. The glaring world seemed full of crazy speeders, spiteful
barkings and honkings and hotness and fried clams, and he was getting
good and dobdab ready to try to do something about it.

Fernvale, a hundred and forty-five miles ahead, had soldered itself into
his mind as the next stopping place. From Fernvale, next day, they'd go
to Filmer's camp for an hour or so; the map had convinced Ripley Little
that Fernvale was the center from which to make that excursion. He
yearned for Fernvale and a hotel room with an electric fan; but now, in
a solid procession of cars headed by a semi-crippled truck the size of a
cottage, he'd been moving bitterly for half an hour at a rate that would
bring him into Fernvale some time tomorrow morning.

Obeying an impulse suddenly, he turned off to the right upon a side
road. Goody, alarmed, asked him if he'd lost his mind. He replied that
he knew what he was doing; this detour would take him back to the main
route far ahead of where he'd have been if he'd stayed behind the truck,
and would she kindly for the first and only time in her whole life stop
backseat driving?

The rutted road wound snakily through the countryside; nevertheless, for
the next twenty-five minutes or so the car made an average of slightly
over sixty miles an hour, borne by Mrs. Little with heroically
speechless horror. Then Little turned left into a shaggy lane, expecting
thereby to return to the main-traveled route, and, after a bumpy
interlude between hedges, arrived at a closed gate beyond which were a
barn, chickens, pigs and a harrow, all enclosed in a delightful old New
England stone fence.

He had to back most of the way out of the lane, while Goody insisted
upon an apology for what he'd said when she warned him not to turn into
it. She had to speak piercingly--Pussy was convulsing himself because of
three farm dogs who talkatively escorted the sedan till it was on the
snaky road again.

Ripley Little said nothing in response, another bad sign.

Beyond the lane the rutty road became narrower, with high soft shoulders
between ditches; but, to make up for time lost in the lane, and to bring
Fernvale nearer, though mostly for other reasons, the speedometer now
went up to 65. Some moments after it touched this figure, the Little
family, tilting, came round a sharp bend and found themselves facing a
disheartening obstacle--a hay wagon overflowing widely and loftily with
fragrant greenish hay and moving at a speed of three miles an hour. Mrs.
Little's nose and much of Pussy pressed into her husband's upper back
before he contrived to suit his pace to the hay wagon's. The hay wagon,
self-centered, occupied precisely the middle of the road. Ripley Little
honked passionately.

The hay wagon, majestic, continued to move upon the middle of the road.

For almost a mile Little drove behind the imperturbable hay wagon, and
honked at intervals--shorter and shorter ones. Then he honked
continuously, producing one long unbroken war-trumpet summons exciting
to Pussy and assisted by him. Mrs. Little, with her hands over her ears,
told Goody she wished she was dead, and Goody reminded her father of
what he'd said about young people's honking. Ripley Little paid no
attention, for he was now immersed in the fateful mood that leads men on
they utterly care not (for the time being) whither. Either love or fury
may become wholly possessive of the person in whom the passion lodges,
and Ripley Little, in these dooming moments, had no love left in him.
Particularly he had none for his fellow men, least of all for farmers.

The hay wagon stopped and so, necessarily, did the seething sedan behind
it. There was a pause; then a farmerish face under a brown straw hat
looked down from the top of the rearward hay. "If you're so certain
you're Hitler," this face asked harshly, "where's your mustache?"

"You pull over!" Ripley Little said in his worst voice. "You pull over
and give me half of this road or I'll----"

"Oh, so you ain't Hitler!" the farmer returned. "Only jest a common
everyday road hog. Listen, bub! I ain't a-goin' to pull over and go off
the shoulder and leave my hay in this ditch."

"Hay?" Little pointed at it. "Call that hay? It's green and two-thirds
weeds. Farmers in my part of the country wouldn't feed it to a jobjam
hyena. Pull over, dob dabbit!"

"Cursin'," the farmer said. "Cursin' right in front of your own women.
Shame, bub! I ain't a-goin' to."

"You ain't? Why, jab my soul, that left hind wheel of yours wobbles five
inches out of plumb every time it turns round. I'm going by you and when
I do I'll take that wheel off for you!"

"Take my wheel off?" The farmer, abruptly horrid, threw Little a kiss.
"Jest try it--Claudie!" he said, and, retiring over the hay, disappeared
from the Littles' sight.

They heard him speak to his horses; axles creaked and the hay wagon
resumed its journey--jeeringly at a lesser speed per day than before.

"Now jab my soul," Ripley Little said, "I _will_ take his wheel off for
him!"

His head was down as in a butting position. The car charged forward.
"_Father!_" Goody cried. "Remember what you said about other people's
rights and courtesy to----"

"I'll take it off!" Little said. "I hope to die if I don't!"

The sedan veered to the left in its desperate attempt to pass the hay
wagon. In spite of his declared intent, Little didn't deliberately try
to detach the wobbly wheel; there was no deliberation about him.
Possibly he may have thought that he could pass without real damage,
even if he had to press the right side of his car somewhat into the
overhanging hay. He must have understood that he was taking a chance;
but he couldn't bring himself to be further delayed by a person who'd
called him Claudie. The right side of the car butted into the hay; there
were metallic protests, cracking sounds and two loud female screams.

The hay wagon stopped massively; and the automobile, in a careened
position and oppressed with hay, ceased to operate. It was still behind
most of the hay wagon, which now had a list to port. The wobbly wheel
lay flat and undeniable upon the ground.

Vocalizings insufferably nasal were heard from ahead; the farmer was
descending. "You sit where you are!" Little said fiercely to his
womenkind. "If this isn't lesson enough for him I'll give him another!"
With a violent hand he opened the door beside him, jumped out, and,
before his wife could finish her second scream, strode forward and was
lost to her sight beyond intervening hay.

"We ought never to have come!" Mrs. Little gasped. "Get out, Goody;
let's get out. Oh, me!"

Already she could hear the voices ahead--rough, rough voices--growing
rougher. There were three of them; and Ripley Little's was easily the
roughest. Mrs. Little and Goody slid down from the car, scrambled round
the hay wagon and its two aged horses, and then, with womanly loyalty,
tried to play a part in a fast, confusing scene; but couldn't, for this
was man's work.

Not only the hay wagon and the Littles' sedan occupied the road. Another
sedan, a lusterless twelve-year-old, had just come out of a grassy
driveway; and it stood vacant some twenty yards before the hay wagon. A
frowning, brown-faced fat man, shabby but with dull brass buttons upon
his old blue waistcoat, had emerged from this sedan and at once taken
part in the altercation. Ripley Little seemed to be but the more
stimulated by the intrusion; and, as if he welcomed it, was first
shaking his fist close to the farmer's face and then even closer to the
fat man's, outbellowing them both unquestionably. Bits of what he said
were distinguishable.

"Show you one jobjam American citizen that knows his rights... Yes,
pay for every jam scratch on my car... See both you dobdab bullfinches
in the Hellespont... You lay one bob dand greasy finger on me and
I'll... Just you try it, you hot dabbled bastinadoed Yahoos and..."

"Father!" Goody screamed. "Be careful! That fat man's got a badge on his
vest and he's got brass buttons. He's a constable!"

"You're under arrest!" the fat man shouted, and with a large soiled hand
grasped at Little's shoulder. "You're under----"

Mrs. Little shrieked and shrieked again. Little hit the fat man in the
stomach and the farmer on the ear. For half a minute Ripley Little was
in extravagant action, then perhaps he realized that the Law was upon
him; the fat man and the farmer certainly were. Unceasingly vociferous,
all three, twining and untwining, Ripley Little, the farmer and the fat
man wrestled toward the twelve-year-old sedan. Little was heaved into
its rear seat, where he sat with the farmer's arms about him. The fat
man jumped in, took the wheel, and the car fled down the road.

Mrs. Little and Goody, shouting plaintively, ran after it.

Upon its license plate, for some moments, they could plainly read the
inviting word VACATIONLAND; then even this encouragement was denied
them. The car, dwindling with distance, turned leftward and disappeared.
Mrs. Little said she was going to faint, and sat down in the dust.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Two miles ahead, at the end of the snaky road, a Christopher Wren
steeple rose above clustered elms, and plain white houses with green
shutters wore lovely speckled blue shadows from the trees. Slightly
outflung from this settlement a large gray shed bore on its front a
partly obliterated circus poster and the sign "J. Ellers Wilson Garage &
Repairing". On a bench outside this shed, Mr. Wilson himself, with an
oily screwdriver on his tapestrylike lap, sat asleep in hot afternoon
sunshine. He was awakened by an investigative Chow and two dusty ladies,
one of whom seemed to be in a state of collapse.

In response to rapid questions put by the younger of the two, J. Ellers
Wilson looked at his screwdriver for a time, then said slowly that yes,
this was Milford and that there wun't no courthouse in Milford; but the
jail, if so be they was lookin' fer it, was in back the Fire Depattment.
Further pressed, he said that he didn't keep no cazz fer hire and they
didn't need none to git to Milford Inn in anyhow, on account it was no
more'n a couple hundud yadds ahead; and that yes, soon as Joe come back
he himself would see if he could go fetch their sedan from where they
left it, bring it in and see if he could see what was wrong with it. The
two ladies departed, the older leaning on the younger, and the leashed
Chow going round trees the wrong way, insisting on being dragged, and
making all the trouble he could.

The Milford Inn, white in an open green yard, faced the village street,
on the opposite side of which were half a dozen two-story buildings, all
with shops on the ground floor, except one that bore over its closed
doors the sign "Ellers L. Thompson Memorial Fire Department". The long
verandah of the Inn was furnished with settees and wicker chairs, all
vacant; but Mrs. Little couldn't ascend to them. She sank upon the
steps.

"I can't," she said. "Miles and miles in this sun with my knees shaking
all the way--it's too much! I'll have to be carried. Oh, listen!" She
clasped her head convulsively. "Goody, it almost seems to me I hear your
father's voice somewhere."

"My soul!" Goody whispered. "So do I! It's over there!"

She pointed at the open upstairs windows of the building next to the
Memorial Fire Department. From these windows came sounds that fascinated
an enlarging group of natives upon the sidewalk below. Mrs. Little, on
the steps of the Inn, across the wide street, was sure she heard the
words "bastinadoed", "jobjam" and "Hellespont"; then, suddenly, the
voice that uttered them seemed to be extinguished. Heavy feet trampled
noisily; doors slammed powerfully.

"Oh, Goody!" Mrs. Little murmured. "What are they doing to him? What
_are_ they doing to him?"

There was silence. The group of natives under the open windows
apathetically dispersed, and one of the doors of the Memorial Fire
Department opened. A fat brown-faced man who had greasy brass buttons
upon his blue waistcoat came forth, looking gratified. He saw the two
ladies and the dog upon the steps of the Inn, crossed the street and
approached them.

"You couldn't find a nicer place," he said. "Milford Inn fer food and
bed, there ain't no bettuh. It's run by kind of a cousin o' mine; you'll
like her." He laughed meditatively. "Well, ladies, if so be you're a
mite anxious 'bout the prisoner, it's no great mattuh--and anyhow the
way I'll tell it to you there wun't be no call fer excitement. Fust he's
got to pay the bill fer that wheel and exle, practically ruinin' my
brothuh's hay cat and spillin' good hay. My own hay it is, too; my
brothuh was jest goin' to turn into my place and d'liver it to me. Yes,
sir; as you might say, Judge socked it to him."

"To my father?" Goody asked gulpingly. "What----"

"Thutty days," the tactful fat man said. "Dun't git excited; I'll tell
you easy. Fust he socked the prisoner a hundud dolluhs fine, with costs,
fer drivin' t' the public danger, and course the bill fer the hay and
hay cat. Then give him the thutty days fer sayin' beforehand he'd take
Lem's wheel off, next doin' it, and on top o' that resistin' an officer
of the law. Next, Judge had to give the prisoner thutty days dishnal fer
what he says when he got the fust thutty--out-and-out contempt o' court
and profane and obscene language. Sixty days in all."

Mrs. Little couldn't speak; but Goody stamped a furious foot. "Profane
and ob----" she cried, and interrupted herself. "You're crazy! He never
in his life----"

"Profane and obscene language," the fat man repeated. "I nevuh heard
wuss since 'leven years ago come Septembuh, the day I had to take my
father-in-law to the 'Sane Asylum. Only reason you can't hear the
prisoner now it's account the cell he's in, it's down the back stairs
from the Judge's office, in back the Fire Depattment. Claims he ain't
goin' to pay no fine, no costs nor no hay bill. That'll make it ninety
days more."

Mrs. Little murmured the name of her Maker and seemed to stretch herself
upon the steps, whereupon the deputy sheriff, for such was his office,
spoke sympathetically. "Take it easy, lady. The prisoner's a-goin' it
now; but come the end his fust sixty days, he'll pay. Don't worry; they
all do if they can raise it. No, sir; say what you will, nobody livin'
ain't nevuh heard such language in a courtroom nor see Judge Hamilton
Ellers git insulteder. He----"

"_Who?_" Goody said. "Judge Hamilton Ellers? Where's the Post Office?"

"Jest round the next corner t' the right, lady. What you----" The fat
deputy closed his mouth and marveled. Goody thrust Pussy's leash upon
him, ran out to the street, turned to the right and was gone.

"My 'Orry!" the deputy said. "Look at that girl run! I don't want this
dog. Lady, fer Godfrey's sake git up!"




CHAPTER XXX


Mrs. Little sobbed feebly and said that before the trouble began she was
wondering how to get her husband to stop just overnight in Milford. She
thought she must be in a dream, she said. Then, realizing that several
people were leaving the shops across the street and coming to look at
her, she lifted a wavering hand toward the deputy. He took it, got her
to her feet and supported her as she leaned against him, murmuring and
almost unaware of him except as a crutch. He helped her up the steps,
across the verandah, and through a doorway into a barroom vacant now of
everything except bottles, glassware, the bar, tables and chairs.

"You set here," he said, as she slid down him, as it were, into a chair.
"Summer people's all at the sailbut races and tennis tunnament; but this
is a good nice cool quiet place and you got your dog." He affixed the
loop of Pussy's leash to the chair. "She must had mighty important mail
directed here; but she'll be back, likely. Me, I got duties to p'form.
You'll feel bettuh when you git your full senses back, lady, like I've
often told many. Good-by till next we meet up, lady."

Alone, except for Pussy, Mrs. Little made efforts to rise and become
efficient; but she couldn't do either. She could only sit with her eyes
closed while her lips moved almost soundlessly, repeating strange words:
"Sick in a barroom and my husband in jail, sick in a barroom and my
husband in jail, sick in a barroom and my husband----" Thus whispering
to Pussy and herself, Mrs. Little knew not how long it was before she
again heard the voice of the fat deputy.

"Open up them eyes, lady," he said, standing before her. "You got a suit
on the second floor with bath. Dog allowed."

"Suit?" she asked. "Dog? What----"

"Suit o' rooms with bath, lady. From the young lady and Ham Ellers I
collect it would seem it turns out you're friends o' Ham's. It would
seem now he was to be waitin' fer her at the Post Office and was. It's
why she run. He----"

"Who?"

"Ham Ellers, lady. His branch the family left Milford during McKinley
but summers always visited back here loyal. Kind of a cousin o' mine,
Ham is--same's the Judge, natchly, him bein' close kin to Ham, his
uncle. Me, I scarcely got away from you when her and Ham and the young
boy come runnin', tuck me with 'em up t' the Judge's office. Courtroom
we us'ally dub it. Ham persuaded till we fixed up a compamise, you might
call it, 'mongst us. So, after all, it's only been a moneytary loss t'
the prisoner, lady. He----"

"Who?"

"The prisoner. When I unlocked him out and up t' the courtroom again and
he see Ham Ellers, and your daughter says hush it's Ham gittin' him his
lib'ty, he's the Judge's nephew, why, the prisoner commenced goin' it
wuss'n even durin' receivin' sentence; but Ham kep' tellin' everybody to
notice how if you listen close it ain't so much profane and obscene such
as what reg'lar men might employ but more kind o' baby-talk-like that
the prisoner uses. So then the Judge says that seemin' to be the case he
begin to see he can rescind them sixty days. You bettuh let me git you
up t' the suit I told your daughter she bettuh take fer you. Lady, you'd
really ought to git up there before they come."

"Why?" she asked. "Before who come?"

"The prisoner, or your husband as maybe he ought to be called now, lady.
Ham Ellers's got him out, and he see, himself, he bettuh settle costs,
fine and hay cat. Ham and the young lady they're walkin' one each side
of him, coaxin' him along, as it were, to git him here, and tryin' to
quieten him so's not to cause no distubbance in the Inn lobby. You can
see 'em and the young boy with 'em, too, if you look out the window
right 'side you. So hadn't you bettuh git up to your suit 'fore they
come in--jest for quietness' sake, lady?"

Mrs. Little looked out of the window and saw Goody and Ham Ellers
arguing, as it were, with Ripley Little on the sidewalk. He seemed to be
telling them that he wouldn't soil his soul by remaining in such a
dobdab bastinadoed town another jobjam second; and they seemed to be
trying to tell him that the garage man said that he'd just towed the
sedan to his shop and couldn't yet say how much was wrong with it. Mrs.
Little's distraught attention was centered upon these three; then she
became aware of a smaller figure devotedly interested just behind them.
Again she seemed to find herself wandering in a dream.

"That boy----" she said. "Why--why, it's my--it's our son. It's Filmer."

"Yes, lady. It's the young boy Ham had, I was tellin' you, lady. I
collect it would seem this young boy belongs over t' Pine Trail Camp
with young Lidgcomb Ellers, Ham's young brothuh--nice place they got
there, eighty-six acres of wood lots that's still in Ham Ellers's branch
the family. I collect Ham went and brought this young boy this mornin'
so's to be a good nice supprise fer you and the prisoner, since it turns
out he's your son and Ham wanted to cause you joyfulness with him."

"It's Filmer!" Mrs. Little moved uncertainly toward the outer door.
"It's Filmer. I must----"

"I wouldn't, lady," the deputy insisted. "Honest, I wouldn't. Give 'em a
little time and they'll git your son up to your suit, along with
the--with your husband. You can see from the window there's a good many
of our citizens edgin' up to listen in, and if you go out there it'll
only excite more distubbance. Bettuh leave it to Ham and the young lady;
they're workin' on him and they'll git him up there. From the looks of
you, what you need's to lay down where you can stretch out, lady."

Mrs. Little let the fat deputy conduct her to an elevator.

...By eleven o'clock that night, music at the Milford Inn had drawn a
dozen or so of the village's pleasure-loving natives to the verandah
windows, to watch the summer people dancing. One of the spectators was
an elderly man in white flannels, and after a time he was joined by a
brown-faced fat friend.

"Good evening, Cousin Ellers," the man in white said graciously. "Fine
taste, Ham has. Never in my life saw prettier dancing or a prettier
girl."

"Sing'lar father, though," Ellers Smith, the deputy, returned. "Course
it's all come out favorable: town gits the fine and costs, brothuh Lem
the new exle and wheel and the hay damage, and Cousin Euphie's got her
nicest-priced suit rented. On tops o' that, thanks to Ham, the summer
residents and young folks receive all this music and crab salad and
dancin'. On the othuh hand what a contrast!"

"Contrast?" Judge Ellers repeated. "Where?"

"Upstairs," Ellers Smith said. "Upstairs in Euphie's best suit. Tuck
kind of an interest--curiosity you might call it. Been kind o' standin'
round on the soft cappit outside their door. Couldn't help hearin' a
good pat of it. Ham can claim all he's a mind to it's jest some kind o'
baby-talk; but if I was to hear a baby usin' it, Judge, honest, I'd run
like a deer. That's what makes I say what a contrast. All this festival
downstairs and at the same time, in the suit right ovuh their heads--my
Godfrey! Unreasonable, he is, unreasonable."

"He is?" the Judge asked. "Still?"

"Is he! Why, look, Judge, all in the world he'd 'a' had to done this
aftanoon, if he'd waited two more minutes Lem'd 'a' been turned into my
driveway with that hay cat, and the road'd been clear. He'd 'a' been in
Fernvale right now where he wanted to be; but think his wife can git him
to b'lieve it?"

"Can't she?"

"Fer one thing," Ellers Smith said, "there was its natchly comin' out in
the courtroom that lucky fer him you're Ham's uncle. Fer anothuh, it
seems he's drawed wrong conclusions from Lem and me bein' brothuhs and
Ham's relations, and in dishnal's got kind of a strong whiff of
everybody in Milford bein' more or less Ellerses, as you might put it.
It would seem he claims his wife's crazy if she thinks he can't put two
and two togethuh it's a plot."

"Plot? What nonsense!"

"So 'tis; but by 'Orry I heard him tellin' her he jest about b'lieves
now Lem's hay cat got in his way a-puppose so't he'd haf to ram her and
bust his cah so't he couldn't git out o' Milford."

"But that's ridiculous!" the Judge said. "Ridiculous!"

"So 'tis." Deputy Ellers Smith looked through the window benignly.
"Graceful couple, ain't they? Nobody ain't told him yet that the garage
man workin' on his cah, not knowin' how long the job'll take him, is
Cousin Ellers Wilson. Course Cousin Ellers Wilson bein' 'gaged to Euphie
and her promisin' him she'll marry him come Indian fall if she gits a
good enough season, and Ham always sech a great favorite with Cousin
Ellers Wilson, why, who knows but somethin' might come of it? No, Judge,
like you says, _up_ to now it certainly ain't been no plot--but from now
_on_ I wouldn't like to say! That cah might haf to stay in Cousin Ellers
Wilson's garage quite some days."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Gudrida Little and Hamilton Ellers swung harmoniously out of the gay
ruck of dancing couples, ran to a pair of chintz-and-wicker chairs
secluded in an alcove of the Inn's lounge, and sat, laughing
together--laughing for several reasons but mostly because they were
their age. After a moment or two, however, Goody told her young friend
seriously that he was this world's supreme marvel.

"But you are!" she repeated. "I mean truly. Nobody else on earth could
have had an uncle that was actually the only person anywhere that could
save Father! So you're really the person who saved him, Ham, and I
think--I do really think--an inkling of that is working itself into his
perceptions. Anyhow, while we were having dinner in our rooms and he was
walking up and down, he admitted it _would_ have been worse if it'd been
Norman Peel, instead. Poor Norman! Father said he couldn't have stood
that."

"Neither could I," Hamilton Ellers said. "It'll be a great advantage for
me if there gets to be at least one of us more unpopular with your
father than I am. I don't believe he actually wants to murder any of us,
though--not really, Goody."

"No, not exactly murder," she agreed. "Maybe it's only that he makes
more fuss about things than most fathers do. Ham, I'm afraid I'm awfully
mean to him sometimes."

"Are you?"

"Yes, maybe it's the Little temper."

"Might be," Hamilton Ellers assented. "Temper's all right unless it's
misapplied--as it usually is, Dean Murphy told our class. I've been
thinking about your father, Goody."

"You have?" The seriousness of both had increased as they talked.
"Thinking about Father? What?"

"Well, I'm only twenty, Goody, and it isn't so easy at that age to
understand much about what goes on in the feelings of a man as old as he
is; but I've been wondering if one of the reasons he seems jumpier than
most people---- Well, don't you think it might be, really, because he's
got more sense than a good many have?"

"More sense, Ham? Father?"

"It may sound funny," Hamilton Ellers admitted. "There's such an awful
lot to get sore about all over the world and it's been like that a good
while and keeps getting more so, worse and worse---- Well, maybe at our
age we don't know that in the same way he knows it. Maybe we don't know
it as _much_ as he knows it. He's more out in it than we are, so it
gripes him more than it does us."

"More out in it?" Goody said. "But if next year you get called up and
have to leave college----"

"I know, I know. All the same, while nobody can deny your father's
pretty irascible--and who knows that better than I do!--yet after all I
can't get the notion out of my head that he's a pretty grand old party."

"Can't you?" Goody said, and he was pleased and surprised by the warmth
with which she spoke. "That's a coincidence because it's what I told
him, myself, just before I came down to dance with you tonight."

"You did, Goody? How'd he take it?"

Goody laughed. "I was afraid to wait to see!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

...Mr. and Mrs. Ripley Little were seated upon the otherwise deserted
long verandah of the Inn, their eyes refreshed, when they glanced
upward, by cerulean patterns seen between the tops of wineglass elms,
while a cool breeze came in from the adjacent sea.

"Nobody's about because it's the bathing hour," Mrs. Little said. "They
have it here at noon. Goody and Filmer and Hamilton say the water's cold
but very stimulating; the beach is only about half a mile away. Did the
man say the car'd be ready for us after lunch today, Ripley?"

"He said at two o'clock. That means four."

"Well----" she said regretfully. "I suppose we _could_ be packed up by
then, and Hamilton could take Filmer back to the Camp this afternoon,
too. In certain respects, after one walks about and looks at it, this
does seem quite a fascinating old place. Anyhow, don't you think it's
cooler than the other places we've been, Ripley?"

"It might be that," he admitted, frowning. "Nowhere could be hotter than
the other places we've been. Nowhere!"

There was a stir within the Inn, the sound of voices and a distant
clamor of dogs barking. "The other guests are coming back," Mrs. Little
said. "They come in by the Inn's other entrance when they get back from
the beach. I think I hear----"

"Yes; it's Pussy all right, job jam him! I'd know his voice in a
hundred--in a thousand--in a dobdab million!"

Summery-looking people began to appear upon the verandah, and,
exhilarated by recent immersions in salt surf, paced briskly up and
down, awaiting the sound of the musical gong that meant lunch. Filmer
was among them. He walked briskly, too; but presently approached his
parents with some diffidence. "It's great," he said. "I swam out to the
float they've got there four times. Father, you ought to try it. This is
a great place. Father, they wanted me not to talk about it or mention
anything, and up to now I haven't and don't intend to, except there's
simply one question I'd like to ask you: Father, just before you got
arrested----"

"Filmer!" Mrs. Little spoke sharply. "You promised both Goody and me you
wouldn't make use of that word!"

"Word?" Filmer repeated. "You mean the word 'arrested', Mother?"

"Filmer, you promised----"

"Never mind," Ripley Little said. This was a moment he'd dreaded; but,
with a sunken heart, he stood up to it. "Let him ask what he wants to."

"Thank you, sir." Filmer faced his father and spoke out. "Father, when
you socked those two men, before you got arrested, where did you land on
'em? Which one'd you hit first? The cop or that big farmer, and where?"

Ripley Little's gaze rested upon the face of his son. It was plain there
had been nothing invidious in Filmer's repetition of the word
"arrested"; he was not trying to avenge himself. On the contrary, in
Filmer's eyes there was only the glow of a profound admiration, just
acquired. Those eyes were worshipful.

Ripley Little was already aware that the workings of Nature are
unfathomable; but here was a new one. Seldom in his life, as he well
knew, had he so misapplied the heat of his temper as in his lawless
assaults upon the hay wagon, the farmer and the deputy; and yet that
very misapplication had given him a higher stand with his family than
he'd ever before attained. Nay--it had brought to him the love and
respect of the two beings for whom, in all the world, he most deeply
cared.

The sun of summer was bright yet gentle in the blue above the elms; away
from a few lovely such spots the earth suffered and most of it was hell,
madness and massacre; broiled lobsters were on the menu for lunch, he'd
seen the headwaiter and would have two; the breeze carried a smell of
the ocean and also another--a smell of salt-marsh hay that brought him
no regret.






[End of The Fighting Littles, by Booth Tarkington]
