Berty, in utter dismay, turned her head to her three groups of guests—Selina and Margaretta gently and wonderingly polite, the Mayor seated by a small table flooding the air with garrulity, and Tom and Roger in the shade of the big piano lamp, expounding all sorts of nonsensical theories and fancies.
Tom just now was on language. “Yes, my dear fellow,” he was saying, rapidly and with outstretched arm, “language is a wonderful thing. I may say that to see a young child grappling with the problem is an awe-inspiring and remarkable sight. Sometimes when it fills the air with its incoherent longings and strivings after oral utterance, after the sounds which custom has made the representation of ideas, the soul of the beholder is struck dumb with admiration, and even I may say terror. If such is the power of the infant brain, what will be the grasp of the adult?”
At this instant Grandma entered the room. She took in the situation at a glance, and her presence afforded instant relief. The flood of “Jimsonese,” as Roger and Tom styled the Mayor’s eloquence, instantly ceased, the two bad boys shut their mouths.
Grandma shook hands with all her guests, then quietly sat down.
“I hope you are not very tired,” said Margaretta, gently. “How is your patient?”
“Better—she only wanted a little comfort.”
“What made her have hysterics?” asked Berty, eagerly, and with a desire to make much of the latest addition to their circle.
Grandma smiled. “She is a very nervous woman, and has been up nights a great deal with a sick baby. She lay down about two hours ago to take a nap. The house has a great many mice in it, and one got in her hair. It was entangled for a few seconds, and she was terrified. It would be very much more afraid of her than she would be of it.”
Tom and Roger laughed uproariously, so uproariously and joyfully that Grandma’s black eyes went to them, rested on them, and did not leave them.
But they did not care. They had not enjoyed themselves so much for years, and they were going to continue doing so, although their punishment was bound to come. Presently, when the conversation between Grandma, Margaretta, Selina, and Berty became really interrupted by their giggling, the old lady left her seat and came over to them.
“Have you been acting like this all the evening?” she asked, severely.
Tom looked at Roger, and Roger looked at Tom.
“And teasing poor Berty?”
Again they looked at each other.
“When I was a girl,” said Grandma, musingly, “I remember getting into those gales of laughter. How I revelled in that intoxication of the spirit! I would even scream with delight, and if I were alone with my girl companions would sometimes roll on the ground in ecstasy. You are pretty old for such pranks, but I see you are ready for one. You ought to be alone for a time. Follow me,” and she left the room.
She took them down-stairs. “Where are we going?” asked Roger, humbly, and nudging Tom.
“Out with the pigeons,” she said. “There is no room in my house for guests who make fun of each other.”
“But the supper?” said Roger, anxiously.
“It would grieve Berty’s hospitable heart for you to miss that,” said Grandma, “so when you have quite finished your laughing, come up-stairs again, and we will all have a nice time together.”
Tom gave Roger a thwack, then, as he found himself in a latticed porch, and contemplated by a number of mild-faced, inquiring pigeons, he dropped on a box and began to snicker again.
“What set you off?” asked the old lady, curiously.
They both began to tell her of poor Berty’s trials with the Mayor.
Grandma laughed too. “There is something funny about that friendship,” she said, “but there is no harm, but rather good in it, and I shall not put a stop to it. Do you know that man would make a good husband for your sister, Tom Everest?”
Tom at this became so silly, and began to pound Roger on the back in such an idiotic manner, that Grandma gently closed the door and stole away.
Going up the steps, she could hear them laughing—now in Homeric fashion. There were no women about to be startled by their noise.
“How did I act?” asked the Mayor, humbly. It was eight o’clock the next morning, and he was standing before Berty as she took her breakfast alone, Grandma having gone across the street to visit her hysterical patient.
Berty thoughtfully drank some coffee.
“I’d take a cup, too, if you’d offer it to me,” he said, still more humbly, and sitting down opposite her. “Somehow or other I hadn’t much appetite this morning, and only took a bite of breakfast.”
Berty, still in silence, poured him out a cup of strong coffee, and put in it a liberal supply of cream. Then, pushing the sugar-bowl toward him, she again devoted herself to her own breakfast.
“You’re ashamed of me,” said the Mayor, lifting lumps of sugar into his cup with a downcast air. “I gabbled.”
“Yes, you gabbled,” said Berty, quietly.
“But I’m going to make an impression,” said the Mayor, slapping the table with one hand. “I’m going to make that woman look at me, and size me up, if she doesn’t do anything more.”
“She sized you up last night,” said Berty, mournfully.
“Did she say anything about me?” asked Mr. Jimson, eagerly.
“Not a word—but she looked unutterable things.”
“Do you think I’d better call on her?” he asked, desperately.
“Oh, gracious, no!” cried Berty, “you’d spoil everything. Leave matters to me in future.”
“I thought I might explain,” he said, with a crestfallen air.
“What would you explain?” asked Berty, cuttingly.
“I’d tell her—well, I’d just remark casually after we’d spoken about the weather that she might have noticed that there was something queer, or that I was a little out in some of my remarks—”
“Well,” said Berty, severely, “what then?”
“I’d just inform her, in a passing way, that I’d always been a steady man, and that if she would kindly overlook the past—”
“Oh! oh!” ejaculated Berty, “you wouldn’t hint to a lady that she might have thought you were under the influence of some stimulant?”
“N-n-no, not exactly,” blundered the Mayor, “but I might quote a little poetry about the intoxication of her presence—I cut a fine piece out of the paper the other day. Perhaps I might read it to her.”
Berty put her arm down on the table and laughed. “Well, if you’re not the oddest man. You are just lovely and original.”
The Mayor looked at her doubtfully, and drank his coffee. Then he got up. “I don’t want you to think I’m not in earnest about this business. I never give up anything I’ve set my mind on, and I like that woman, and I want her to be Mrs. Peter Jimson.”
Berty shivered. “Oh, dear, dear! how badly you will feel if she makes up her mind to be Mrs. Somebody Else—but I’ll help you all I can. You have a great ally in me.”
“I’m obliged to you,” said the Mayor, gruffly.
“I was ashamed of those other two men last evening,” said Berty, getting up and walking out toward the hall with him. “I wanted to shake them.”
“I didn’t take much stock in their actions,” said the Mayor, indifferently. “They just felt funny, and would have carried on whether I had been there or not.”
“How forgiving in you—how noble,” said Berty, warmly.
“Nothing noble about it—I know men, and haven’t any curiosity about them. It’s you women that bother the life out of me. I don’t know how to take you.”
“It’s only a little past eight,” said Berty, suddenly. “Can’t you come down to the wharf with me? You don’t need to go to town yet.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said the Mayor, reluctantly.
Berty caught up her sailor hat, and tripped beside him down to the street, talking on any subject that came uppermost.
The Mayor, however, returned to his first love. “Now, if there was something I could do to astonish her,” he said. “If her house got on fire, and I could rescue her, or if she fell out of a boat into the river, and I could pull her in.”
“She’s pretty tall,” said Berty, turning and surveying the rather short man by her side. “I doubt if you could pull her in.”
“If I got a good grip I could,” he said, confidently.
“The worst of it is, those heroic things don’t happen once in an age,” said Berty, in a matter-of-fact voice, “and, anyway, a woman would rather you would please her in a thousand little ways than in one big one.”
“What do you call little ways?” asked the Mayor.
“Oh, being nice.”
“And what is niceness?” he went on, in an unsatisfied voice.
“Niceness?—well, it is hard to tell. Pick up her gloves if she drops them, never cross her, always kiss her good-bye in the morning, and tell her she’s the sweetest woman in the world when you come home in the evening.”
“Well, now,” said the Mayor, in an aggrieved voice, “as if I’m likely to have the chance. You won’t even let me call on her.”
“No, don’t you go near her,” said Berty, “not for awhile. Not till I sound her about you.”
“How do you think I stand now with her?” asked Mr. Jimson, with a downcast air.
“Well, to tell the truth,” said Berty, frankly, “I think it’s this way. She wasn’t inclined to pay much attention to you at first, not any more than if you were a table or a chair. When you began to talk she observed you, and I think she was saying to herself, ‘What kind of a man is this?’ Then when Grandma drove Tom and Roger out of the room, I think she wanted to laugh.”
“Then she must have been a little interested,” said the man, breathlessly.
“No,” said Berty, gravely, “when a woman laughs at a man, it’s all up with him.”
“Then you think I might as well give up?” said the Mayor, bitterly.
“Not at all,” said his sympathizer, kindly. “There may fall to you some lucky chance to reinstate yourself.”
“Now what could it be?” asked Mr. Jimson, eagerly. “What should I be looking out for?”
“Look out for everything,” said Berty, oracularly. “She will forget about the other night.”
“I thought you told me the other day that women never forget.”
“Neither they do,” said Berty, promptly, “never, never.”
“According to all I can make out,” said the Mayor, with a chagrined air, “you women have all the airs and graces of a combine, and none of its understandabilities. Your way of doing business don’t suit me. When I spot a bargain I jump on it. I close the affair before another fellow has a chance. That’s how I’ve made what little money I have.”
“You mustn’t make love the way you do business,” said Berty, shaking her head. “Oh, no, no.”
“Well, now, isn’t it business to want a good wife?”
“Yes,” said Berty, promptly, “and I admire your up-to-date spirit. There’s been a lot of nonsense talked about roses, and cottages, and heavenly eyes, and delicious noses and chins. I believe in being practical. You want this kind of a wife—look for her. Don’t fall in love with some silly thing, and then get tired of her in a week.”
“What kind of a husband would you like?” asked the Mayor, curiously.
“Well,” said Berty, drawing in a long breath of the crisp morning air. “I want a tall, slight man, with brown curly hair and gray eyes.”
“That’ll be a hard combination to find,” said her companion, grimly.
“Yes, but I shall think all the more of him when I find him, and he must be clever, very clever—ahead of all the men in his State, whichever State it happens to be—and he must have a perfect temper, because I have a very faulty one, and he must be of a noble disposition, and looked up to by every one he knows.”
“I never met that kind of a man,” said the Mayor, drily.
“Nor I,” said Berty, “but there must be such a man in the world.”
“How about Tom Everest?” asked Mr. Jimson. “I saw him looking at you last night.”
“Tom Everest!” exclaimed Berty, indignantly. “An insurance agent!”
The Mayor snickered enjoyably, then fell behind a step, for they had just reached the entrance of Milligan’s Wharf.
Berty was talking to some little girls who, even at this early hour, were hanging about the gate of the new park.
“Of course you may come in,” she said, producing a key from her pocket. “The workmen have about finished—there are a few loose boards about, but I will take care that they don’t fall on you.”
With squeals of delight, the little girls dashed ahead, then stood staring about them.
Milligan’s Wharf had indeed been transformed. A high fence surrounded it on every side, one end had been smoothed and levelled for games, the other was grassy and planted with trees.
“Those elms will be kept trimmed,” said Berty, “except in midsummer. I am determined that these River Street children shall have enough sunlight for once—just look at those little girls.”
The Mayor smiled broadly. Like discoverers who have fallen on some rich store of treasure, the little girls had espied a huge heap of sand, and had precipitated themselves upon it.
“Isn’t it queer how crazy children get over sand?” said Berty. Then she stepped into a small gate-house. “Here, children, are pails and shovels. Now have a good time.”
The little shovels were plied vigorously, but they were not quick enough for the children, and presently abandoning them, they rolled in delight over the soft sandy mass.
“There is no doubt that our park will be a success,” said Berty, with a smile.
“By the way,” asked the Mayor, shrewdly, “who is to look after these children? If you turn all the hoodlums of the neighbourhood in, there will be scrapping.”
“I was thinking of that,” said Berty, wrinkling her brows. “We ought to have some man or woman here. But we have no money to pay any one.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t take such a position,” said the Mayor.
“I!” exclaimed Berty, “why, I’d love it.”
“You wouldn’t need to stay all the time,” said Mr. Jimson. “You could get a woman to help you.”
“All the women about here are pretty busy.”
“You’d pay her, of course. There’d have to be a salary—not a heavy one—but I could fix up something with the city council. They’ve built the park. They’re bound to provide for it.”
“I should love to earn some money,” said Berty, eagerly, “but, Mr. Jimson, perhaps people would talk and say I had just had the park made to create a position for myself.”
“Suppose they did—what would you care?”
“Why, I’d care because I didn’t.”
“And no one would think you had. Don’t worry about that. Now I must get back to town.”
“Mind you’re to make the first speech to-morrow at the opening of this place,” said Berty.
“Yes, I remember.”
“And,” she went on, hesitatingly, “don’t you think you’d better commit your speech to paper? Then you’d know when to stop.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, hopelessly. “Something would prompt me to make a few oral remarks after I’d laid down the paper.”
“I should like you to make a good speech, because Miss Everest will be here.”
“Will she? Then I must try to fix myself. How shall I do it?”
“I might have a pile of boards arranged at the back of the park,” said Berty, “and as soon as you laid down the paper, I’d give a signal to a boy to topple them over. In the crash you could sit down.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, drearily. “I’d wait till the fuss was over, then I’d go on.”
“And that wouldn’t be a good plan, either,” said Berty, “because some one might get hurt. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You give me a sheet of paper just the size of that on which you write your speech. Mind, now, and write it. Don’t commit it. And don’t look at this last sheet till you stand on the platform and your speech is finished.”
“What will be on it?” asked Mr. Jimson, eagerly.
“The most awful hobgoblin you ever saw. I used to draw beauties at school. When you see this hobgoblin you won’t be able to think of anything else. Just fix your eyes on his terrible eyes, and you will sit down in the most natural way possible.”
“Maybe I will,” he said, with a sigh, “but I doubt it—you’re a good girl, anyway.”
“Oh, no. I’m not, Mr. Mayor, begging your pardon. I’m only trying to be one.”
“Well, I’ve got to go,” said her companion, reluctantly. “I wish I could skip that stived-up office and go out on the river with you.”
“I wish you could,” said Berty, frankly. “But I’ve got work to do, too. I want every clergyman in the town to be present to-morrow. Have your speech short, will you, for it will probably be a hot day.”
“All right,” said the Mayor. “Good-bye,” and he trotted away.
The next afternoon had come, and was nearly gone. There had been a crowd of people at the opening of the Milligan Wharf Park. Ragged children, sailors, day-labourers, and poor women of the neighbourhood had stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the first citizens of the town—citizens who in the whole course of their lives had never been on this street before.
The well-dressed spectators had looked about them with interest. This fad of Mrs. Travers’s young granddaughter had excited much attention. She had carried her scheme through, and many curious glances had been sent in the direction of the suddenly shy, smiling girl, trying to hide behind the stately little grandmother, who sat looking as if the opening of parks for poor children were a daily occurrence in her life.
There had been room for some of the audience in the long, low shed erected for a playroom for the children on rainy days; however, many persons had been obliged to sit on benches placed in the hot sunlight, therefore the opening exercises had been arranged to be exceedingly short.
The Mayor, unfortunately, had transgressed, as he had prophesied he would do. However, in his speech he had, to Berty’s delight, carefully abstained from mentioning the part she had taken in procuring the park for the children of River Street. But succeeding speakers had so eulogized the self-sacrificing and public-spirited girl, that finally she had slipped away into one of the summer-houses, where, now that all was over, she was talking with her grandmother.
They had the park to themselves as far as grown persons were concerned. The rich and well-to-do people had filed away. The poor men and women of the neighbourhood had gone to their homes for their early evening meal.
“They say every rose has a thorn,” exclaimed Berty. “Where is the thorn in this?” and she waved her hand about the huge playground where scores of children were disporting themselves.
“It is here,” said Grandma. “Don’t lose heart when you see it.”
“Do you see it?” asked Berty, pointedly.
“Yes, dear.”
“And what is it?”
“That there must be some one here every minute of the time to see that the big children do not impose on the little ones. There’s a big hulking boy slapping a little one now. I’ll go settle him,” and Grandma nimbly walked away.
“That is no thorn,” said Berty, when she came back. “Mr. Jimson has arranged for it. He has just told me that the city council voted me last evening five hundred dollars as park supervisor.”
“My dear!” said Grandma, in surprise.
“Isn’t it lovely?” murmured Berty, with flushed cheeks. “Now I can pay all the household expenses. With my annuity we shall be quite prosperous.”
“The city appreciates what you are doing,” said Grandma, softly, “and the Mayor has been a good friend to you.”
“Hasn’t he?” said Berty. “I must not scold him for that awful speech.”
“The opening was good,” said Grandma, mildly.
“Yes, but the middle and the ending,” replied Berty, with a groan.
“Oh, how I suffered—not for myself. I could endure to hear him speak for a year. But I do so want him to make a good impression on others. His tongue is just like a spool of silk. It unwinds and unwinds and unwinds, and never breaks off. Talk about women’s tongues!”
“He is new to public speaking. He will get over it.”
“And I made him such a thrilling hobgoblin,” continued Berty, in an aggrieved voice. “Why, I had nightmare last night just in dreaming about it.”
“A hobgoblin?” said Grandma, questioningly.
“Yes—to stop him. It was on the last page of his manuscript. You remember when he came to the end of his paper, he just stopped a minute, smiled a sickly smile, and went on. Why, that hobgoblin didn’t frighten him a bit. It inspired him. What was he talking about? What do people talk about when they ramble on and on? I can never remember.”
“Berty,” said Mrs. Travers, shrewdly, “you are tired and excited. You would better come home. There is Mrs. Provis looking in the gate. She will keep an eye on the children.”
“Oh, Mrs. Provis,” said Berty, hurrying to the gate, “won’t you come in and sit awhile till I go home and get something to eat? I’ll come back presently and lock up.”
“Yes, miss,” said the woman, readily. “That’s a little thing to do for you. I guess this street takes store of what you’ve done for our young ones.”
“They’re my young ones, too,” said Berty, proudly. “I live on the street—we’re all neighbours. Now I’ll go. I won’t be long. Your eldest girl can get the supper ready for your husband, can’t she?”
“That she can, miss.”
Berty walked away with her grandmother, and the woman, gazing after her, said, “Bless your black head. I’d like to hear any one say anything agin you in River Street.”
In an hour Berty was back again, part of her supper in her pocket.
Contentedly eating her bread and butter, she sat on a bench watching the children, most of whom absolutely refused to go home, while others ran merely for a few mouthfuls of something to eat.
This intoxication of play in a roomy place was a new experience to them, and Berty, with an intensely thankful face, watched them until a heavy footstep made her turn her head.
The Mayor stood before her, two red spots on his cheeks, and a strange light in his eye. “I’ve just been to your house,” he said, “and your grandmother sent me here.”
“Did she?” said Berty; then she added, promptly, “What has happened?”
Mr. Jimson heaved a deep, contented sigh, and seated himself beside her. “I’m a happy man, Miss Berty.”
“What are you happy about?” she asked, briskly. “It isn’t—it isn’t Miss Everest?”
“Yes, it is Miss Everest,” said Mr. Jimson. “Something took place this afternoon.”
“Oh, what?—why don’t you tell me? You’re terribly slow.”
“I’m as fast as I can be. I’m not a flash of lightning.”
“No, indeed.”
“Well, I’ve met Miss Everest—she’s talked with me!”
“She has!” cried Berty, joyfully.
“Yes, she has. You know, after the affair this afternoon some of the people went to town. Miss Everest was shopping.”
“She always does her shopping in the morning,” interrupted Berty. “All the smart set do.”
“Well, I guess she found herself down-town,” said Mr. Jimson, good-naturedly, “and couldn’t get by the shops. Anyway, she was coming out of that fol-de-rol place where you women buy dolls and ribbons.”
“Oh, you mean Smilax & Wiley’s.”
“Yes, that’s the place. She came out of the door, and, turning her head to speak to some one passing her, she almost ran into me. I stopped short, you may be sure, and I know you’ll be mad with me when I tell you that I forgot to take my hat off.”
“Perhaps I won’t,” said Berty, guardedly. “It depends on what follows.”
“I just stood rooted to the spot, and staring with all my might. She grew kind of pink and bowed. I said, ‘Miss Everest,’ then I stopped. I guess she was sorry for my dumbness, for she said, in a kind of confused way, ‘What a stupid place this is. I’ve been all over it trying to match some silk, and I can’t find a scrap.’ And still I never said a word. For the life of me I couldn’t think of anything. Then she said, ‘That was a very good speech of yours this afternoon.’”
“Now surely you said something in response to that,” interjected Berty, “such a gracious thing for her to say.”
“Never a word,” replied the Mayor, seriously, “and, seeing that I couldn’t or wouldn’t speak, she went away. After she left, words came to me, and I babbled on to myself, till the people began to look at me as if they thought I’d gone crazy, then I moved on.”
“Well,” said Berty, with badly suppressed scorn, “this is a great tale. Where have you distinguished yourself, pray?”
“Wait a bit,” said Mr. Jimson, soberly. “I haven’t finished. Before I left the spot I cast my eyes to the pavement. What did I see but the bit of silk she had dropped there.”
“Well,” observed Berty, in a mystified way, when he paused.
“I thought of what you said,” continued the Mayor. “I called up your hint about small things. I picked up the bit of silk.”
“And, for goodness’ sake, what did you do with it?” queried Berty, in distress. “Some fantastic thing, I’ll be bound.”
“I took it away to my office,” Mr. Jimson went on, solemnly, and with the air of keeping back some item of information that when communicated would cover him with glory. “I’ve got an office-boy as sharp as a needle. I gave him the piece of silk. I said, ‘You hold on to that as if it were a fifty-dollar greenback. You take the seven-thirty train for Boston. You match that silk, and get back here as quick as you can.’”
“Oh! oh!” cried Berty, “how much did you send for?”
“For a pound,” said the Mayor, tragically. “She said she had a peóny to work, and they’re pretty big flowers.”
“Péony, not pe-ó-ny,” said Berty, peevishly. Then she thought awhile, and the Mayor, losing his deeply satisfied air, sat regarding her in bewilderment.
At last she delivered her opinion sibyl-like. “I don’t know whether you’ve done a good thing or not. Only time can tell. But I think you have.”
“I’ve done just what you told me,” said the astonished man. “You said to look out for little things.”
“Yes, but the question is, have you the right yet to look out for little things,” said Berty, with some dissatisfaction in her tone. “When grandma was married she forgot her wedding-bouquet, and her newly made husband had a special train leave here to take it to Bangor, but he had the right.”
“Look here,” said the Mayor, and the red spots on his cheeks deepened, “you’re criticizing too much. I guess you’d better not interfere between Miss Everest and me.”
“You’ll want me to give her that silk when it comes,” said Berty, defiantly.
“I did—that’s just what I came to speak to you about, but now I’ll give it to her myself.”
“She may not like it.”
“She can like it, or lump it,” said Mr. Jimson, inelegantly; “when that parcel comes, I am going to take it to her.”
“Suppose the boy can’t match the silk?”
“He’s got to,” said Mr. Jimson, obstinately.
“But perhaps he can’t; then how will she ever know you sent for it, if I don’t tell her. You would like me to in that case, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m no violet,” said Mr. Jimson, disagreeably. “I want to get in with Miss Everest, and how can I if I blush unseen?”
“I’ll tell her of your blushes,” said Berty, generously. “Come, now, let us be friends again. From my standpoint, I think you have done nobly and magnificently.”
“But you were just blaming me.”
“That was from Miss Everest’s standpoint.”
“I’m blessed if I know how to take you,” muttered the confused man. “One minute you’re yourself, and the next you’re another woman.”
“That’s feminine reversibility,” said Berty, graciously. “You don’t understand us yet. That is the punishment our Creator inflicts upon you, for not having studied us more. A pity I hadn’t known you five years ago—come, it’s time to lock up here. Oh, Mr. Mayor, can’t we have electric lights for this playground?”
With an effort he called back his wandering thoughts which were on the way to Boston with his office-boy, and looked round the darkening park. “What do you want lights for?”
“Why, these children play till all hours. It’s mean to keep them here till dark, then turn them on the streets. A few lights would make the place as light as day.”
The Mayor stared about him in silence.
“I’ve just been thinking about the electric light people,” continued Berty. “They’re a big, rich company, aren’t they?”
“So, so.”
“Well, would it be wrong for me to go to them and ask to have a few lights put in?”
“Wrong, no—”
“But would they do it?”
“Well, I guess if you went to them with your mind made up that they ought to, they would do it quick enough.”
“I’ll go,” said Berty, with satisfaction. “Thank you so much. I’ll say you advised me.”
The Mayor sighed, but said nothing.
“Come, children,” called Berty, in her clear voice, “it’s time to go home. Gates open at eight-thirty to-morrow morning.”
She huddled them out into the street like a flock of unwilling sheep, then walked home beside her suddenly silent companion.
“Selina Everest sat beside Grandma to-day,” said Berty, recurring to what she knew was now his favourite topic of conversation.
“I saw her there,” said her companion, eagerly. “Do you suppose your grandmother—”
“Yes, she did,” and Berty finished his sentence for him. “Trust Grandma to slip a good word in Miss Everest’s ear about you. I saw her blush, so perhaps she is beginning to care.”
“Perhaps your grandmother had better take her the silk,” said the Mayor, generously.
“No, I think I’ll attend to that myself,” said Berty, “but come in and see Grandma,” and she paused; “we’ll have a nice talk about the Everests.”
“By the way,” she said, ushering him out to the veranda, and lingering for a minute before she went to find her grandmother, “I want to thank you again for getting me that salary for looking after the playground. I’m just delighted—but I think I’ll have to get a helper, for Grandma doesn’t want me to stay there all the time.”
“That’s square—just what I recommended,” said Mr. Jimson. “Get any one you like, and give him or her ten or twelve dollars a month to assist you.”
“But suppose he or she does half my work?”
“That don’t count. Skilled labour, you know, takes the cake.”
“But if any one does half my work, they must have half my pay.”
“Nonsense,” said the Mayor, abruptly.
“I sha’n’t grind the face of any poor person,” said Berty, doggedly.
“All right—have it your own way, but if you won’t mind me, consult your grandmother before you pledge yourself.”
Berty and her grandmother were having a quiet little picnic together. They had gone away up the river to Cloverdale, and, landing among the green meadows, had followed a path leading to a small hill crowned by a grove of elm-trees.
Here Berty had established her grandmother on a rug with cushions, magazines, and a new book, and the ever-present knitting.
Thinking that the little old lady wished to have a nap, Berty left her, and, accompanied by a mongrel dog who had come from River Street with them, roamed somewhat disconsolately along the river bank.
This proceeding on her part just suited the occupant of a second boat, who, unknown to Berty, had watched her pink and white one all the way from the city.
With strong, steady strokes he pulled near the bank where the girl stood knee-deep in the high meadow-grass, then, with a hypocritical start, pretended to recognize her for the first time, just as he was rowing by.
“How de do, Berty—what are you doing here?”
“Grandma and I are having a picnic,” she said, in a lugubrious voice.
“A picnic,” he repeated, incredulously, “you mean a funeral.”
“I mean what I say,” she replied, crossly.
“Might a fellow land?” he asked, his eyes dancing mischievously.
“A fellow can land, or move on, or swim, or fly, for aught I care,” she responded, ungraciously.
He jumped up, sprang out of his boat, and fastened it to the same stake where Berty’s was moored.
“You’ve been looking cross-eyed at the sun,” he said, taking off his hat and fanning himself.
“Take care that you don’t do the same thing,” said Berty.
He looked at her sharply. She was cross, pure and simple, and with a satisfied smile he went on, “Might a fellow sit down on this grass? It looks uncommonly comfortable.”
“Oh, yes,” said Berty, seating herself near him. “One might as well sit as stand.”
“‘YOU’RE DYING TO TEASE ME’”
“This is pleasant,” said Tom, happily, leaning on one elbow with his hat over his eyes, and gazing dreamily at the river.
“It is the prettiest river in the world,” remarked Berty, decidedly.
“Come now—how many rivers have you seen?” inquired Tom.
“Lots of them.”
“And you have never been out of your native State.”
“I have been to Boston, and New York, and New Orleans. How strange that you should forget it,” replied Berty, wrathfully.
“What’s made you mad, Berty?” inquired Tom, with a brotherly air.
“You know,” she said, sulkily, “you’re dying to tease me.”
“Poor little girl,” murmured Tom, under his breath. Then he said, aloud, “Peter Jimson is in our house morning, noon, and night now.”
“Don’t I know it!” exclaimed Berty, indignantly, “and you are encouraging him, and you can’t bear him.”
“Come now, Berty,” said Tom, protestingly. “‘Can’t bear’ is a strong expression. I never thought much about him till he began sending business my way. I tell you that makes a lot of difference. It isn’t in human nature to look critically at a man who gives you a helping hand in the struggle for existence. Unless he’s a monster, which Jimson isn’t.”
“And he has helped you?” asked Berty, curiously.
“Lots—he has a big influence in the city. Don’t you know about it?”
“About his influence?”
“No—about his favouring me.”
“He tells me nothing now,” and her tone was bitter.
“You’ve been a good friend to him, Berty. He is never tired of singing your praises.”
“To whom does he sing? To Selina?”
“I don’t know. I’m not with them much.”
“Then he sings them to you?”
“Yes, just as soon as I pitch him the tune.”
“I should think you’d know enough of me,” said Berty, peevishly. “I’m sure you’re one of the earliest objects I remember seeing in life.”
“Come now, Berty,” he replied, good-naturedly, “you needn’t be flinging my age up to me. I’m only six years older than you, anyway.”
“Well, that is an age.”
“How did you and Jimson fall out?” asked Tom, curiously. “I’d give considerable to know.”
“You’ll never know, now that I see you want to,” replied Berty, vigorously.
Tom meditatively chewed a piece of meadow-grass, then said, easily, “I spoke in the language of exaggeration. We all do it. Of course, I guess that you had a quarrel. Jimson was dancing about you morning, noon, and night, till he took a fancy to Selina. Then you were jealous.”
“It wasn’t that at all,” said Berty, unguardedly. “I wouldn’t be so silly. He broke his word about a package of silk.”
“Oh,” replied Tom, coolly, “that was the silk Selina was so delighted to get. He sent a boy to Boston for it.”
“Yes, and the arrangement, the very last arrangement, was for me to present it when it came. Several days went by; and I thought it queer I didn’t hear from him. Then I met him in the street. ‘Couldn’t the boy match the silk?’ I asked.
“‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘he brought it fast enough.’
“‘And where is it?’ I asked.
“‘Miss Everest has it.’
“‘Miss Everest?’ I said. ‘How did she get it?’
“‘Well,’ he said, ‘when it came, I just couldn’t resist. I caught it from the boy. I took a carriage to her house—she was just at breakfast, but she came out, and I gave it to her.’
“‘And what did she say?’ I asked. Now this is where I blame him, Tom. Just think, after all my kindness to him, and coaching him as to the ways of women, he just said, coolly, ‘I can’t tell you.’
“‘Can’t tell me?’ I repeated. ‘You’ve got to. I’m more interested in this affair than you are.’
“‘I—I can’t,’ he stammered. ‘I’ve seen Miss Everest several times since, and she says you’re only a child—not to tell everything to you.’
“‘Only a child!’ I said. ‘Very well!’ and I stalked away. He sent me a bouquet of carnations and maidenhair that evening, but of course flowers had no effect on me.”
“Selina is jealous of you,” said Tom, promptly.
“I’m not jealous of her,” returned Berty, sweetly. “I wish her every happiness, but I do think the Mayor might have been more open.”
“If he’s got to dance after Selina, his work’s cut out,” said Tom.
“Do you think she will marry him?” asked Berty, eagerly.
“Marry him—of course she will. I never saw her so pleased over anything as she was over that silk affair. Jimson is a good-hearted fellow, Berty.”
“Good-hearted, yes, but he doesn’t keep his promises. He hasn’t got those pigeon-boxes up yet.”
“What pigeon-boxes?”
“He promised to have some nailed on the shed for me. The boxes are all made, but not put up.”
“I’ll do it,” said Tom, generously. “I’ll come to-morrow.”
“To-morrow will be Sunday.”
“Monday, then. Monday afternoon as soon as the office closes.”
“Very well,” said Berty, with a sigh, “but you’ll probably forget. My friends don’t seem to be standing by me lately.”
“Your friends—why, you are the heroine of the city—confound it, what is that dog doing?”
Berty’s mongrel friend, taking advantage of Tom’s absorbing interest in his companion, had lain down on the grass behind him and had chewed a piece out of his coat.
“Look at it—the rascal,” exclaimed Tom, twisting round his blue serge garment—“a clean bite. What kind of a dog is this? Get out, you brute.”
“Don’t scold him,” said Berty, holding out a hand to the culprit. “He doesn’t know any better. He is young and cutting teeth.”
“Well, I wish he’d cut them on some other man—look at that coat. It’s ruined.”
“Can’t you get it mended?”
“Who would do it for me?”
“Send it to your tailor.”
“It’s too shabby—I just keep it for boating.”
“Ask your mother or Selina.”
“They’re too busy with fancy work. Selina is working peonies all over the place. She’s got to use up that pound of silk.”
“I don’t know what you’ll do, then,” observed Berty, in an uninterested way, “unless,” with sudden vivacity, “you give me the coat for a poor person.”
“Not I—I can’t afford that. I’ll tell you, Berty, I ought to get a wife.”
“Why, so you should,” said the young girl, kindly. “It’s time you were getting settled. Have you any one in mind?”
“I know the kind of a girl I want,” said Tom, evasively. “I do wish you’d help me pick her out.”
Berty shook her head with sudden wariness. “I forgot, I’m not going to meddle with match-making any more. You’re sure to get a snub from the person you’re trying hardest to benefit.”
“I promise you that the girl I choose will never snub you,” said Tom, solemnly.
“There was Selina,” replied Berty, bitterly, “I just loved her, and thought her beautiful and stately like a picture, and far above Mr. Jimson, and now she says I’m a child—a child!”
“It’s too bad,” said Tom, sympathetically, “but Selina was always a little bit wrapped up in herself.”
“I had even got as far as the engagement-ring,” continued Berty. “I thought a red stone—a garnet or a ruby—would be less common than the diamond that everybody has.”
“Would you prefer a red stone for yourself?” asked Tom, artlessly.
“Yes, I should think I would.”
“Well, you see Selina wants to choose for herself. You women like to manage your own affairs.”
“But Mr. Jimson is just as bad. He’s as stubborn as a mule when I want to advise him.”
“I guess we all like to run our own concerns,” said Tom, good-humouredly, “but to come back to my girl, Berty, I do wish you would help me. You understand women so much better than I do.”
“Didn’t I just tell you that I wouldn’t meddle with matrimonial affairs again—not for any one. Not even if dear Grandma were to ask me.”
“Well, now, we all have a great respect for Grandma,” said Tom, warmly, “but I scarcely think she is likely to think of giving you another grandfather.”
“Oh, you wretch!” said Berty, irritably. “I don’t mean for herself. I mean for Bonny, or you, or some of her young friends.”
“Well, as your decision is irrevocable, I suppose I mustn’t tease,” observed Tom, slowly getting up and looking out over the river, “but I would really like you to help me. Perhaps Margaretta will. Good-bye, Berty.”
“Grandma and I are going to have a cup of tea presently,” said Berty, staring out over the meadows without looking at him. “We’ve brought a kettle and some eatables. If you would like to stay, I know Grandma would be glad to have you.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think I’d better accept Grandma’s kind invitation. My mind is full of this important business of choosing a wife, and I want to find some one who will give me good advice. Margaretta will just about be going to dinner by the time I get back to the city. I’ll change my duds, and get over just about the minute that the third course goes in.”
“What kind of a girl do you want?” said Berty, staring up at him.
“A tall girl, much taller than you, or even Margaretta. Tall and flaxen-haired like a doll.”
“And blue eyes, I suppose,” said Berty, sarcastically.
“Oh, yes, blue as the sky, and tapering fingers—white fingers, not brown from boating and out-of-door life.”
“You want a hothouse plant,” said Berty, disdainfully.
“You’ve put my very idea in words,” said Tom, in an ecstasy, as he again sat down on the grass near her. “I’d admire to wait on one of those half-sick creatures. It seems to me if I could wrap her in a white shawl in the morning, and come back at night and find her in the same place, I’d be perfectly happy. Now these healthy, athletic creatures with strong opinions scurry all over the place. You never know where to find them.”
“Suppose you advertise.”
“I dare say I’ll have to. I don’t know any one of just the type I want here in Riverport, but I thought perhaps you might know one. It doesn’t matter if she lives outside. I wouldn’t mind going a little way.”
“There’s Matty DeLong,” replied Berty. “She has neuralgia terribly, but then her hair isn’t light.”
“I don’t want a neuralgic victim. It’s just a kind of general debility girl I want.”
“What about the doctor’s bills?”
“I’ll pay them,” said Tom, enthusiastically. “Give me domestic peace even at the expense of bills.”
“I expect I’d be a terrible termagant if I married,” observed Berty, thoughtfully.
Her companion made no reply to this assertion.
“If I asked a man for money, and he wouldn’t give it to me, I think I’d want to pound him to a jelly,” continued Berty, warmly.
“I expect he’d let you,” observed Tom, meekly, “but you’re not thinking of marriage for yourself, are you, Berty?”
“No,” she said, snappishly, “only when the subject is so much discussed, I can’t help having ideas put into my head.”
“I suppose you’d like a Boston man, wouldn’t you?” inquired Tom, demurely.
“I don’t know. Anybody that was a stranger and celebrated would do.”
“You’re like me in one respect. You want a brand-new article, not something you’ve been used to seeing since infancy.”
“I should like a President,” said Berty, wistfully, “but when men come to the presidential chair they’re all too old for me.”
“But it must be ennobling for you to have such an ambitious spirit,” observed Tom.
“It does make me feel nice—Hark! isn’t that Grandma calling?”
“Yes,” replied Tom. “Let us go see what she wants.”
“Berty, Berty,” the distant voice was saying, “isn’t it time to put the kettle on? We must get home before dark.”
“Yes, Grandma, dear,” called Berty. “Tom Everest is here. He will help me find some sticks. You please sit still and rest—come, Tom, and speak to her first,” and smiling and playing with the dancing mongrel pup, Berty ran up the slope.
Berty was away out on the lonely road leading from the iron works to the city.
Grandma had not been well all day, and Berty had gone to ask Bonny to spend the night in the River Street house. Since the boy’s admission into Roger’s office he had virtually lived in Roger’s house.
Not that he loved Margaretta and Roger more than he loved his grandmother and Berty, but the Grand Avenue style of living was more in accord with his aristocratic tastes than the plain ways of the house in River Street. So the boy really had two homes.
Berty, who had been in the house with her grandmother all through the morning, had enjoyed the long walk out to the iron works, and was now enjoying the long walk home.
It was a perfect afternoon. “How I love the late summer,” murmured the girl, and she gazed admiringly about her at the ripening grain fields, the heavily foliaged trees, the tufts of goldenrod flowering beside the dusty road.
Away off there in the distance was a moving cloud of dust coming from the city. Nearer at hand, it resolved itself into a man who was shuffling along in a lazy way, and kicking up very much more dust than there was any necessity of doing.
Berty stared at him. She knew most of the citizens of Riverport by sight, and whether she knew them by sight or not, she could tell by their general appearance whether they belonged to the place.
This man was a stranger—a seedy, poor-looking man with a brown face, and he was observing her as intently as she was observing him.
Arrived opposite her, he stopped. “Lady,” he said, in a whining voice, “please give a poor sick man some money to buy medicine.”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, promptly.
“An awful internal trouble, lady,” he said, laying his hand on his side. “Intermittent pains come on every evening at this time.”
“You don’t look ill,” replied Berty, suspiciously. “Your face is as bronzed as a sailor’s.”
“The doctors prescribed outdoor air, lady,” he went on, whiningly.
“I haven’t any money for you.”
The man, from his station in the road, looked back toward the city, then forward in the direction of the iron works. There was not a soul in sight, and as quick as a flash an angry sentence sprang to the girl’s lips, “Let me by.”
“But, lady, I want some money,” he said, persistently, and he stood in her way.
She surveyed him contemptuously. “You want to make me give you some, but I tell you you couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t I, lady?” he replied, half-sneeringly, half-admiringly.
“No,” said Berty, promptly, “because, in the first place, I’d be so mad that you couldn’t get it from me. You’re only a little man, and I guess a gymnasium-trained girl like myself could knock you about considerably. Then look here,” and, stepping back, she suddenly flashed something long and sharp and steely from her head. “Do you see that hat-pin? It would sting you like a wasp,” and she stabbed the air with it.
The man snickered. “You’ve plenty of sand, but I guess I could get your purse if I tried.”
“Oh, how angry you make me,” returned the girl, with a fiery glance. “Now I can understand how one can let oneself be killed for an idea. You might possibly overcome me, you might get my purse, but you couldn’t kill the mad in me if you chopped me in a thousand little pieces.”
“Lady,” said the man, teasingly, “I guess you’d give in before then, though I’ve no doubt but what your temper would carry you considerable far.”
“And suppose you got my purse,” said Berty, haughtily, “what good would it do you? Wouldn’t I scream? I’ve got a voice like a steam-whistle; and the iron works close in five minutes, and this road will be alive with good honest workmen. They’d hunt you down like a rabbit.”
For the first time a shade of uneasiness passed over his face. But he speedily became cool. “Good evening, lady, excuse me for frightening you,” and, pulling at his battered hat, he started to pass on.
“Stop!” said Berty, commandingly, “who are you, and why did you come to Riverport?”
He lazily propped himself against a tree by the roadside. “It was in my line of march.”
“Are you a tramp?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I am.”
“Where were you born?”
“In New Hampshire.”
“You weren’t born a tramp?”
“Great Harry!” muttered the man, taking off his hat and pushing back from his forehead the dark hair sprinkled with gray, “it seems a hundred years since I was born. My father was a well-to-do farmer, young lady, if you want to know, and he gave me a good education.”
“A good education,” repeated Berty, “and now you have sunk so low as to stop women and beg for money.”
“Just that low,” he said, indifferently, “and from a greater height than you think.”
“What was the height?” asked Berty, eagerly.
“I was once a physician in Boston,” he returned, with a miserable remnant of pride.
“You a physician!” exclaimed Berty, “and now a tramp!”
“A tramp pure and simple.”
“What made you give up your profession?”
“Well, I was born lazy, and then I drank, and I drink, and I always shall drink.”
“A drunkard!” murmured Berty, pityingly. “Poor fellow!”
The man looked at her curiously.
“How old are you?” she asked, suddenly.
“Forty-five.”
“Have you tried to reform?”
“Formerly—not now.”
“Oh, how queer people are,” said the girl, musingly. “How little I can understand you. How little you can understand me. Now if I could only get inside your mind, and know what you are thinking about.”
“I’m thinking about my supper, lady,” he said, flippantly; then, as she looked carefully at him, he went on, carelessly, “Once I was young like you. Now I don’t go in for sentiment. I feed and sleep. That’s all I care about.”
“And do you do no work?”
“Not a stroke.”
“And you have no money?”
“Not a cent.”
“But how do you live?”
“Off good people like you,” he said, wheedlingly. “You’re going to give me a hot supper, I guess.”
“Follow me,” said Berty, suddenly setting off toward the city, and the man sauntered after her.
When they reached River Street, she opened the gate leading into the yard and beckoned to him.
“I can’t take you in the house,” she said, in a low voice, as he followed her. “My grandmother is ill, and then our house is very clean.”
“And I am very unclean,” he said, jocularly surveying himself, “though I’m by no means as bad as an ash-heap tramp.”
“But I’ll put you into the shed,” continued Berty. “There are only a few guinea-pigs there. They are quiet little things, and won’t hurt you.”
“I hope you won’t give me husks for supper,” murmured the tramp.
Berty eyed him severely. His condition to her was too serious for jesting, and she by no means approved of his attempts at humour.
“I’ll bring you out something to eat,” she said, “and if you want to stay all night, I’ll drag you out a mattress.”
“I accept your offer with thankfulness, lady,” he replied.