"Atrocious!" she exclaimed. "Atrocious! Simply atrocious, Belmont.
This is a house of public entertainment. They _can't_ turn us out in
this high-minded manner! Isn't there a law or something to that
effect?"

"It wouldn't matter if there was," he thoughtfully replied. "This
fellow Ellsworth would be too clever to be caught by it. He would say
that the house was not a hotel but a private residence during the
period for which he has rented it."

Personally, he rather admired Ellsworth. Seemed to be a resourceful
sort of chap who knew how to make money behave itself, and do its
little tricks without balking in the harness.

"Then you can make him take down the sign!" his wife declared.

He shook his head decidedly.

"It wouldn't do, Belle," he replied. "It would be spite, not
retaliation, and not at all sportsmanlike. The course you suggest
would belittle us more than it would annoy them. There must be some
other way."

He went in to talk with Uncle Billy.

"I want to buy this place," he stated. "Is it for sale?"

"It sartin is!" replied Uncle Billy. He did not merely twinkle this
time. He grinned.

"How much?"

"Three thousand dollars." Mr. Tutt was used to charging by this time,
and he betrayed no hesitation.

"I'll write you out a check at once," and Mr. Van Kamp reached in his
pocket with the reflection that the spot, after all, was an ideal one
for a quiet summer retreat.

"Air you a-goin' t' scribble that there three thou-san' on a piece o'
paper?" inquired Uncle Billy, sitting bolt upright. "Ef you air
a-figgerin' on that, Mr. Kamp, jis' you save yore time. I give a man
four dollars fer one o' them check things oncet, an' I owe myself them
four dollars yit."

Mr. Van Kamp retired in disorder, but the thought of his wife and
daughter waiting confidently on the porch stopped him. Moreover, the
thing had resolved itself rather into a contest between Ellsworth and
himself, and he had done a little making and breaking of men and
things in his own time. He did some gatling-gun thinking out by the
newel-post, and presently rejoined Uncle Billy.

"Mr. Tutt, tell me just exactly what Mr. Ellsworth rented, please," he
requested.

"Th' hull house," replied Billy, and then he somewhat sternly added:
"Paid me spot cash fer it, too."

Mr. Van Kamp took a wad of loose bills from his trousers pocket,
straightened them out leisurely, and placed them in his bill book,
along with some smooth yellowbacks of eye-bulging denominations. Uncle
Billy sat up and stopped twiddling his thumbs.

"Nothing was said about the furniture, was there?" suavely inquired
Van Kamp.

Uncle Billy leaned blankly back in his chair. Little by little the
light dawned on the ex-horse-trader. The crow's feet reappeared about
his eyes, his mouth twitched, he smiled, he grinned, then he slapped
his thigh and haw-hawed.

"No!" roared Uncle Billy. "No, there wasn't, by gum!"

"Nothing but the house?"

"His very own words!" chuckled Uncle Billy. "'Jis' th' mere house,'
says he, an' he gits it. A bargain's a bargain, an' I allus stick to
one I make."

"How much for the furniture for the week?"

"Fifty dollars!" Mr. Tutt knew how to do business with this kind of
people now, you bet.

Mr. Van Kamp promptly counted out the money.

"Drat it!" commented Uncle Billy to himself. "I could 'a' got more!"

"Now where can we make ourselves comfortable with this furniture?"

Uncle Billy chirked up. All was not yet lost.

"Waal," he reflectively drawled, "there's th' new barn. It hain't been
used for nothin' yit, senct I built it two years ago. I jis' hadn't
th' heart t' put th' critters in it as long as th' ole one stood up."

The other smiled at this flashlight on Uncle Billy's character, and
they went out to look at the barn.



VII


Uncle Billy came back from the "Tutt House Annex," as Mr. Van Kamp
dubbed the barn, with enough more money to make him love all the world
until he got used to having it. Uncle Billy belongs to a large family.

Mr. Van Kamp joined the women on the porch, and explained the
attractively novel situation to them. They were chatting gaily when
the Ellsworths came down the stairs. Mr. Ellsworth paused for a moment
to exchange a word with Uncle Billy.

"Mr. Tutt," said he, laughing, "if we go for a bit of exercise will
you guarantee us the possession of our rooms when we come back?"

"Yes sir-ree!" Uncle Billy assured him. "They shan't nobody take them
rooms away from you fer money, marbles, ner chalk. A bargain's a
bargain, an' I allus stick to one I make," and he virtuously took a
chew of tobacco while he inspected the afternoon sky with a clear
conscience.

"I want to get some of those splendid autumn leaves to decorate our
cozy apartments," Mrs. Ellsworth told her husband as they passed in
hearing of the Van Kamps. "Do you know those oldtime rag rugs are the
most oddly decorative effects that I have ever seen. They are so rich
in color and so exquisitely blended."

There were reasons why this poisoned arrow failed to rankle, but the
Van Kamps did not trouble to explain. They were waiting for Ralph to
come out and join his parents. Ralph, it seemed, however, had decided
not to take a walk. He had already fatigued himself, he had explained,
and his mother had favored him with a significant look. She could
readily believe him, she had assured him, and had then left him in
scorn.

The Van Kamps went out to consider the arrangement of the barn. Evelyn
returned first and came out on the porch to find a handkerchief. It
was not there, but Ralph was. She was very much surprised to see him,
and she intimated as much.

"It's dreadfully damp in the woods," he explained. "By the way, you
don't happen to know the Whitleys, of Washington, do you? Most
excellent people."

"I'm quite sorry that I do not," she replied. "But you will have to
excuse me. We shall be kept very busy with arranging our apartments."

Ralph sprang to his feet with a ludicrous expression.

"Not the second floor front suite!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, no! Not at all," she reassured him.

He laughed lightly.

"Honors are about even in that game," he said.

"Evelyn," called her mother from the hall. "Please come and take those
front suite curtains down to the barn."

"Pardon me while we take the next trick," remarked Evelyn with a laugh
quite as light and gleeful as his own, and disappeared into the hall.

He followed her slowly, and was met at the door by her father.

"You are the younger Mr. Ellsworth, I believe," politely said Mr. Van
Kamp.

"Ralph Ellsworth. Yes, sir."

"Here is a note for your father. It is unsealed. You are quite at
liberty to read it."

Mr. Van Kamp bowed himself away, and Ralph opened the note, which
read:

EDWARD EASTMAN ELLSWORTH, ESQ.,

Dear Sir: This is to notify you that I have rented the entire
furniture of the Tutt House for the ensuing week, and am compelled to
assume possession of that in the three second floor front rooms, as
well as all the balance not in actual use by Mr. and Mrs. Tutt and the
driver of the stage. You are quite welcome, however, to make use of
the furnishings in the small room over the kitchen. Your luggage you
will find undisturbed. Regretting any inconvenience that this
transaction may cause you, I remain,

Yours respectfully,

J. BELMONT VAN KAMP.

Ralph scratched his head in amused perplexity. It devolved upon him to
even up the affair a little before his mother came back. He must
support the family reputation for resourcefulness, but it took quite a
bit of scalp irritation before he aggravated the right idea into
being. As soon as the idea came, he went in and made a hide-bound
bargain with Uncle Billy, then he went out into the hall and waited
until Evelyn came down with a huge armload of window curtains.

"Honors are still even," he remarked. "I have just bought all the
edibles about the place, whether in the cellar, the house or any of
the surrounding structures, in the ground, above the ground, dead or
alive, and a bargain's a bargain as between man and man."

"Clever of you, I'm sure," commented Miss Van Kamp, reflectively.
Suddenly her lips parted with a smile that revealed a double row of
most beautiful teeth. He meditatively watched the curve of her lips.

"Isn't that rather a heavy load?" he suggested. "I'd be delighted to
help you move the things, don't you know."

"It is quite kind of you, and what the men would call 'game,' I
believe, under the circumstances," she answered, "but really it will
not be necessary. We have hired Mr. Tutt and the driver to do the
heavier part of the work, and the rest of it will be really a pleasant
diversion."

"No doubt," agreed Ralph, with an appreciative grin. "By the way, you
don't happen to know Maud and Dorothy Partridge, of Baltimore, do you?
Stunning pretty girls, both of them, and no end of swells."

"I know so very few people in Baltimore," she murmured, and tripped on
down to the barn.

Ralph went out on the porch and smoked. There was nothing else that he
could do.



VIII


It was growing dusk when the elder Ellsworths returned, almost hidden
by great masses of autumn boughs.

"You should have been with us, Ralph," enthusiastically said his
mother. "I never saw such gorgeous tints in all my life. We have
brought nearly the entire woods with us."

"It was a good idea," said Ralph. "A stunning good idea. They may come
in handy to sleep on."

Mrs. Ellsworth turned cold.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"Ralph," sternly demanded his father, "you don't mean to tell us that
you let the Van Kamps jockey us out of those rooms after all?"

"Indeed, no," he airily responded. "Just come right on up and see."

He led the way into the suite and struck a match. One solitary candle
had been left upon the mantel shelf. Ralph thought that this had been
overlooked, but his mother afterwards set him right about that. Mrs.
Van Kamp had cleverly left it so that the Ellsworths could see how
dreadfully bare the place was. One candle in three rooms is drearier
than darkness anyhow.

Mrs. Ellsworth took in all the desolation, the dismal expanse of the
now enormous apartments, the shabby walls, the hideous bright spots
where pictures had hung, the splintered flooring, the great, gaunt
windows--and she gave in. She had met with snub after snub, and cut
after cut, in her social climb, she had had the cook quit in the
middle of an important dinner, she had had every disconcerting thing
possible happen to her, but this--this was the last _bale_ of straw.
She sat down on a suitcase, in the middle of the biggest room, and
cried!

Ralph, having waited for this, now told about the food transaction,
and she hastily pushed the last-coming tear back into her eye.

"Good!" she cried. "They will be up here soon. They will be compelled
to compromise, and they must not find me with red eyes."

She cast a hasty glance around the room, then, in a sudden panic,
seized the candle and explored the other two. She went wildly out into
the hall, back into the little room over the kitchen, downstairs,
everywhere, and returned in consternation.

"There's not a single mirror left in the house!" she moaned.

Ralph heartlessly grinned. He could appreciate that this was a
characteristic woman trick, and wondered admiringly whether Evelyn or
her mother had thought of it. However, this was a time for action.

"I'll get you some water to bathe your eyes," he offered, and ran into
the little room over the kitchen to get a pitcher. A cracked
shaving-mug was the only vessel that had been left, but he hurried
down into the yard with it. This was no time for fastidiousness.

He had barely creaked the pump handle when Mr. Van Kamp hurried up
from the barn.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Van Kamp, "but this water belongs
to us. My daughter bought it, all that is in the ground, above the
ground, or that may fall from the sky upon these premises."



IX


The mutual siege lasted until after seven o'clock, but it was rather
one-sided. The Van Kamps could drink all the water they liked, it made
them no hungrier. If the Ellsworths ate anything, however, they grew
thirstier, and, moreover, water was necessary if anything worth while
was to be cooked. They knew all this, and resisted until Mrs.
Ellsworth was tempted and fell. She ate a sandwich and choked. It was
heartbreaking, but Ralph had to be sent down with a plate of
sandwiches and an offer to trade them for water.

Halfway between the pump and the house he met Evelyn coming with a
small pail of the precious fluid. They both stopped stock still; then,
seeing that it was too late to retreat, both laughed and advanced.

"Who wins now?" bantered Ralph as they made the exchange.

"It looks to me like a misdeal," she gaily replied, and was moving
away when he called her back.

"You don't happen to know the Gately's, of New York, do you?" he was
quite anxious to know.

"I am truly sorry, but I am acquainted with so few people in New York.
We are from Chicago, you know."

"Oh," said he blankly, and took the water up to the Ellsworth suite.

Mrs. Ellsworth cheered up considerably when she heard that Ralph had
been met halfway, but her eyes snapped when he confessed that it was
Miss Van Kamp who had met him.

"I hope you are not going to carry on a flirtation with that
overdressed creature," she blazed.

"Why mother," exclaimed Ralph, shocked beyond measure. "What right
have you to accuse either this young lady or myself of flirting?
Flirting!"

Mrs. Ellsworth suddenly attacked the fire with quite unnecessary
energy.




X


Down at the barn, the wide threshing floor had been covered with gay
rag-rugs, and strewn with tables, couches, and chairs in picturesque
profusion. Roomy box-stalls had been carpeted deep with clean straw,
curtained off with gaudy bed-quilts, and converted into cozy sleeping
apartments. The mow and the stalls had been screened off with lace
curtains and blazing counterpanes, and the whole effect was one of
Oriental luxury and splendor. Alas, it was only an "effect"! The
red-hot parlor stove smoked abominably, the pipe carried other smoke
out through the hawmow window, only to let it blow back again. Chill
cross-draughts whistled in from cracks too numerous to be stopped up,
and the miserable Van Kamps could only cough and shiver, and envy the
Tutts and the driver, non-combatants who had been fed two hours
before.

Up in the second floor suite there was a roaring fire in the big
fireplace, but there was a chill in the room that no mere fire could
drive away--the chill of absolute emptiness.

A man can outlive hardships that would kill a woman, but a woman can
endure discomforts that would drive a man crazy.

Mr. Ellsworth went out to hunt up Uncle Billy, with an especial solace
in mind. The landlord was not in the house, but the yellow gleam of a
lantern revealed his presence in the woodshed, and Mr. Ellsworth
stepped in upon him just as he was pouring something yellow and clear
into a tumbler from a big jug that he had just taken from under the
flooring.

"How much do you want for that jug and its contents?" he asked, with a
sigh of gratitude that this supply had been overlooked.

Before Mr. Tutt could answer, Mr. Van Kamp hurried in at the door.

"Wait a moment!" he cried. "I want to bid on that!"

"This here jug hain't fer sale at no price," Uncle Billy emphatically
announced, nipping all negotiations right in the bud. "It's too pesky
hard to sneak this here licker in past Marge't, but I reckon it's my
treat, gents. Ye kin have all ye want."

One minute later Mr. Van Kamp and Mr. Ellsworth were seated, one on a
sawbuck and the other on a nail-keg, comfortably eyeing each other
across the work bench, and each was holding up a tumbler one-third
filled with the golden yellow liquid.

"Your health, sir," courteously proposed Mr. Ellsworth.

"And to you, sir," gravely replied Mr. Van Kamp.



XI


Ralph and Evelyn happened to meet at the pump, quite accidentally,
after the former had made half a dozen five-minute-apart trips for a
drink. It was Miss Van Kamp, this time, who had been studying on the
mutual acquaintance problem.

"You don't happen to know the Tylers, of Parkersburg, do you?" she
asked.

"The Tylers! I should say I do!" was the unexpected and enthusiastic
reply. "Why, we are on our way now to Miss Georgiana Tyler's wedding
to my friend Jimmy Carston. I'm to be best man."

"How delightful!" she exclaimed. "We are on the way there, too.
Georgiana was my dearest chum at school, and I am to be her 'best
girl.'"

"Let's go around on the porch and sit down," said Ralph.


XII

Mr. Van Kamp, back in the woodshed, looked about him with an eye of
content.

"Rather cozy for a woodshed," he observed. "I wonder if we couldn't
scare up a little session of dollar limit?"

Both Uncle Billy and Mr. Ellsworth were willing. Death and poker level
all Americans. A fourth hand was needed, however. The stage driver was
in bed and asleep, and Mr. Ellsworth volunteered to find the extra
player.

"I'll get Ralph," he said. "He plays a fairly stiff game."  He finally
found his son on the porch, apparently alone, and stated his errand.

"Thank you, but I don't believe I care to play this evening," was the
astounding reply, and Mr. Ellsworth looked closer. He made out, then,
a dim figure on the other side of Ralph.

"Oh! Of course not!" he blundered, and went back to the woodshed.

Three-handed poker is a miserable game, and it seldom lasts long. It
did not in this case. After Uncle Billy had won the only jack-pot
deserving of the name, he was allowed to go blissfully to sleep with
his hand on the handle of the big jug.

After poker there is only one other always available amusement for
men, and that is business. The two travelers were quite well
acquainted when Ralph put his head in at the door.

"Thought I'd find you here," he explained. "It just occurred to me to
wonder whether you gentlemen had discovered, as yet, that we are all
to be house guests at the Carston-Tyler wedding."

"Why, no!" exclaimed his father in pleased surprise. "It is a most
agreeable coincidence. Mr. Van Kamp, allow me to introduce my son,
Ralph. Mr. Van Kamp and myself, Ralph, have found out that we shall be
considerably thrown together in a business way from now on. He has
just purchased control of the Metropolitan and Western string of
interurbans."

"Delighted, I'm sure," murmured Ralph, shaking hands, and then he
slipped out as quickly as possible. Some one seemed to be waiting for
him.

Perhaps another twenty minutes had passed, when one of the men had an
illuminating idea that resulted, later on, in pleasant relations for
all of them. It was about time, for Mrs. Ellsworth, up in the bare
suite, and Mrs. Van Kamp, down in the draughty barn, both wrapped up
to the chin and both still chilly, had about reached the limit of
patience and endurance.

"Why can't we make things a little more comfortable for all
concerned?" suggested Mr. Van Kamp. "Suppose, as a starter, that we
have Mrs. Van Kamp give a shiver party down in the barn?"

"Good idea," agreed Mr. Ellsworth. "A little diplomacy will do it.
Each one of us will have to tell his wife that the other fellow made
the first abject overtures."

Mr. Van Kamp grinned understandingly, and agreed to the infamous ruse.

"By the way," continued Mr. Ellsworth, with a still happier thought,
"you must allow Mrs. Ellsworth to furnish the dinner for Mrs. Van
Kamp's shiver party."

"Dinner!" gasped Mr. Van Kamp. "By all means!"

Both men felt an anxious yawning in the region of the appetite, and a
yearning moisture wetted their tongues. They looked at the slumbering
Uncle Billy and decided to see Mrs. Tutt themselves about a good, hot
dinner for six.

"Law me!" exclaimed Aunt Margaret when they appeared at the kitchen
door. "I swan I thought you folks 'u'd never come to yore senses. Here
I've had a big pot o' stewed chicken ready on the stove fer two mortal
hours. I kin give ye that, an' smashed taters an' chicken gravy, an'
dried corn, an' hot corn-pone, an' currant jell, an' strawberry
preserves, an' my own cannin' o' peaches, an' pumpkin-pie an' coffee.
Will that do ye?" Would it _do_! _Would_ it do!!

As Aunt Margaret talked, the kitchen door swung wide, and the two men
were stricken speechless with astonishment. There, across from each
other at the kitchen table, sat the utterly selfish and traitorous
younger members of the rival houses of Ellsworth and Van Kamp, deep in
the joys of chicken, and mashed potatoes, and gravy, and hot
corn-pone, and all the other "fixings," laughing and chatting gaily
like chums of years' standing. They had seemingly just come to an
agreement about something or other, for Evelyn, waving the shorter end
of a broken wishbone, was vivaciously saying to Ralph:

"A bargain's a bargain, and I always stick to one I make."



A CALL

By Grace MacGowan Cooke (1863- )

[From _Harper's Magazine_, August, 1906. Copyright, 1906, by Harper &
Brothers. Republished by the author's permission.]

A boy in an unnaturally clean, country-laundered collar walked down a
long white road. He scuffed the dust up wantonly, for he wished to
veil the all-too-brilliant polish of his cowhide shoes. Also the
memory of the whiteness and slipperiness of his collar oppressed him.
He was fain to look like one accustomed to social diversions, a man
hurried from hall to hall of pleasure, without time between to change
collar or polish boot. He stooped and rubbed a crumb of earth on his
overfresh neck-linen.

This did not long sustain his drooping spirit. He was mentally adrift
upon the _Hints and Helps to Young Men in Business and Social
Relations_, which had suggested to him his present enterprise, when
the appearance of a second youth, taller and broader than himself,
with a shock of light curling hair and a crop of freckles that
advertised a rich soil threw him a lifeline. He put his thumbs to his
lips and whistled in a peculiarly ear-splitting way. The two boys had
sat on the same bench at Sunday-school not three hours before; yet
what a change had come over the world for one of them since then!

"Hello! Where you goin', Ab?" asked the newcomer, gruffly.

"Callin'," replied the boy in the collar, laconically, but with
carefully averted gaze.

"On the girls?" inquired the other, awestruck. In Mount Pisgah you saw
the girls home from night church, socials, or parties; you could hang
over the gate; and you might walk with a girl in the cemetery of a
Sunday afternoon; but to ring a front-door bell and ask for Miss
Heart's Desire one must have been in long trousers at least three
years--and the two boys confronted in the dusty road had worn these
dignifying garments barely six months.

"Girls," said Abner, loftily; "I don't know about girls--I'm just
going to call on one girl--Champe Claiborne." He marched on as though
the conversation was at an end; but Ross hung upon his flank. Ross and
Champe were neighbors, comrades in all sorts of mischief; he was in
doubt whether to halt Abner and pummel him, or propose to enlist under
his banner.

"Do you reckon you could?" he debated, trotting along by the
irresponsive Jilton boy.

"Run home to your mother," growled the originator of the plan,
savagely. "You ain't old enough to call on girls; anybody can see
that; but I am, and I'm going to call on Champe Claiborne."

Again the name acted as a spur on Ross. "With your collar and boots
all dirty?" he jeered. "They won't know you're callin'."

The boy in the road stopped short in his dusty tracks. He was an
intense creature, and he whitened at the tragic insinuation, longing
for the wholesome stay and companionship of freckle-faced Ross. "I put
the dirt on o' purpose so's to look kind of careless," he half
whispered, in an agony of doubt. "S'pose I'd better go into your house
and try to wash it off? Reckon your mother would let me?"

"I've got two clean collars," announced the other boy, proudly
generous. "I'll lend you one. You can put it on while I'm getting
ready. I'll tell mother that we're just stepping out to do a little
calling on the girls."

Here was an ally worthy of the cause. Abner welcomed him, in spite of
certain jealous twinges. He reflected with satisfaction that there
were two Claiborne girls, and though Alicia was so stiff and prim that
no boy would ever think of calling on her, there was still the hope
that she might draw Ross's fire, and leave him, Abner, to make the
numerous remarks he had stored up in his mind from _Hints and Helps to
Young Men in Social and Business Relations_ to Champe alone.

Mrs. Pryor received them with the easy-going kindness of the mother of
one son. She followed them into the dining-room to kiss and feed him,
with an absent "Howdy, Abner; how's your mother?"

Abner, big with the importance of their mutual intention, inclined his
head stiffly and looked toward Ross for explanation. He trembled a
little, but it was with delight, as he anticipated the effect of the
speech Ross had outlined. But it did not come.

"I'm not hungry, mother," was the revised edition which the
freckle-faced boy offered to the maternal ear. "I--we are going over
to Mr. Claiborne's--on--er--on an errand for Abner's father."

The black-eyed boy looked reproach as they clattered up the stairs to
Ross's room, where the clean collar was produced and a small stock of
ties.

"You'd wear a necktie--wouldn't you?" Ross asked, spreading them upon
the bureau-top.

"Yes. But make it fall carelessly over your shirt-front," advised the
student of _Hints and Helps_. "Your collar is miles too big for me.
Say! I've got a wad of white chewing-gum; would you flat it out and
stick it over the collar button? Maybe that would fill up some. You
kick my foot if you see me turning my head so's to knock it off."

"Better button up your vest," cautioned Ross, laboring with the
"careless" fall of his tie.

"Huh-uh! I want 'that easy air which presupposes familiarity with
society'--that's what it says in my book," objected Abner.

"Sure!" Ross returned to his more familiar jeering attitude. "Loosen
up all your clothes, then. Why don't you untie your shoes? Flop a sock
down over one of 'em--that looks 'easy' all right."

Abner buttoned his vest. "It gives a man lots of confidence to know
he's good-looking," he remarked, taking all the room in front of the
mirror.

Ross, at the wash-stand soaking his hair to get the curl out of it,
grumbled some unintelligible response. The two boys went down the
stairs with tremulous hearts.

"Why, you've put on another clean shirt, Rossie!" Mrs. Pryor called
from her chair--mothers' eyes can see so far! "Well--don't get into
any dirty play and soil it." The boys walked in silence--but it was a
pregnant silence; for as the roof of the Claiborne house began to peer
above the crest of the hill, Ross plumped down on a stone and
announced, "I ain't goin'."

"Come on," urged the black-eyed boy. "It'll be fun--and everybody will
respect us more. Champe won't throw rocks at us in recess-time, after
we've called on her. She couldn't."

"Called!" grunted Ross. "I couldn't make a call any more than a cow.
What'd I say? What'd I do? I can behave all right when you just go to
people's houses--but a call!"

Abner hesitated. Should he give away his brilliant inside information,
drawn from the _Hints and Helps_ book, and be rivalled in the glory of
his manners and bearing? Why should he not pass on alone, perfectly
composed, and reap the field of glory unsupported? His knees gave way
and he sat down without intending it.

"Don't you tell anybody and I'll put you on to exactly what grown-up
gentlemen say and do when they go calling on the girls," he began.

"Fire away," retorted Ross, gloomily. "Nobody will find out from me.
Dead men tell no tales. If I'm fool enough to go, I don't expect to
come out of it alive."

Abner rose, white and shaking, and thrusting three fingers into the
buttoning of his vest, extending the other hand like an orator,
proceeded to instruct the freckled, perspiring disciple at his feet.

"'Hang your hat on the rack, or give it to a servant.'" Ross nodded
intelligently. He could do that.

"'Let your legs be gracefully disposed, one hand on the knee, the
other--'"

Abner came to an unhappy pause. "I forget what a fellow does with the
other hand. Might stick it in your pocket, loudly, or expectorate on
the carpet. Indulge in little frivolity. Let a rich stream of
conversation flow.'"

Ross mentally dug within himself for sources of rich streams of
conversation. He found a dry soil. "What you goin' to talk about?" he
demanded, fretfully. "I won't go a step farther till I know what I'm
goin' to say when I get there."

Abner began to repeat paragraphs from _Hints and Helps_. "'It is best
to remark,'" he opened, in an unnatural voice, "'How well you are
looking!' although fulsome compliments should be avoided. When seated
ask the young lady who her favorite composer is.'"

"What's a composer?" inquired Ross, with visions of soothing-syrup in
his mind.

"A man that makes up music. Don't butt in that way; you put me all
out--'composer is. Name yours. Ask her what piece of music she likes
best. Name yours. If the lady is musical, here ask her to play or
sing.'"

This chanted recitation seemed to have a hypnotic effect on the
freckled boy; his big pupils contracted each time Abner came to the
repetend, "Name yours."

"I'm tired already," he grumbled; but some spell made him rise and
fare farther.

When they had entered the Claiborne gate, they leaned toward each
other like young saplings weakened at the root and locking branches to
keep what shallow foothold on earth remained.

"You're goin' in first," asserted Ross, but without conviction. It was
his custom to tear up to this house a dozen times a week, on his
father's old horse or afoot; he was wont to yell for Champe as he
approached, and quarrel joyously with her while he performed such
errand as he had come upon; but he was gagged and hamstrung now by the
hypnotism of Abner's scheme.

"'Walk quietly up the steps; ring the bell and lay your card on the
servant,'" quoted Abner, who had never heard of a server.

"'Lay your card on the servant!'" echoed Ross. "Cady'd dodge. There's
a porch to cross after you go up the steps--does it say anything about
that?"

"It says that the card should be placed on the servant," Abner
reiterated, doggedly. "If Cady dodges, it ain't any business of mine.
There are no porches in my book. Just walk across it like anybody.
We'll ask for Miss Champe Claiborne."

"We haven't got any cards," discovered Ross, with hope.

"I have," announced Abner, pompously. "I had some struck off in
Chicago. I ordered 'em by mail. They got my name Pillow, but there's a
scalloped gilt border around it. You can write your name on my card.
Got a pencil?"

He produced the bit of cardboard; Ross fished up a chewed stump of
lead pencil, took it in cold, stiff fingers, and disfigured the square
with eccentric scribblings.

"They'll know who it's meant for," he said, apologetically, "because
I'm here. What's likely to happen after we get rid of the card?"

"I told you about hanging your hat on the rack and disposing your
legs."

"I remember now," sighed Ross. They had been going slower and slower.
The angle of inclination toward each other became more and more
pronounced.

"We must stand by each other," whispered Abner.

"I will--if I can stand at all," murmured the other boy, huskily.

"Oh, Lord!" They had rounded the big clump of evergreens and found
Aunt Missouri Claiborne placidly rocking on the front porch! Directed
to mount steps and ring bell, to lay cards upon the servant, how
should one deal with a rosy-faced, plump lady of uncertain years in a
rocking-chair. What should a caller lay upon her? A lion in the way
could not have been more terrifying. Even retreat was cut off. Aunt
Missouri had seen them. "Howdy, boys; how are you?" she said, rocking
peacefully. The two stood before her like detected criminals.

Then, to Ross's dismay, Abner sank down on the lowest step of the
porch, the westering sun full in his hopeless eyes. He sat on his cap.
It was characteristic that the freckled boy remained standing. He
would walk up those steps according to plan and agreement, if at all.
He accepted no compromise. Folding his straw hat into a battered cone,
he watched anxiously for the delivery of the card. He was not sure
what Aunt Missouri's attitude might be if it were laid on her. He bent
down to his companion. "Go ahead," he whispered. "Lay the card."

Abner raised appealing eyes. "In a minute. Give me time," he pleaded.

"Mars' Ross--Mars' Ross! Head 'em off!" sounded a yell, and Babe, the
house-boy, came around the porch in pursuit of two half-grown
chickens.

"Help him, Rossie," prompted Aunt Missouri, sharply. "You boys can
stay to supper and have some of the chicken if you help catch them."

Had Ross taken time to think, he might have reflected that gentlemen
making formal calls seldom join in a chase after the main dish of the
family supper. But the needs of Babe were instant. The lad flung
himself sidewise, caught one chicken in his hat, while Babe fell upon
the other in the manner of a football player. Ross handed the pullet
to the house-boy, fearing that he had done something very much out of
character, then pulled the reluctant negro toward to the steps.

"Babe's a servant," he whispered to Abner, who had sat rigid through
the entire performance. "I helped him with the chickens, and he's got
to stand gentle while you lay the card on."

Confronted by the act itself, Abner was suddenly aware that he knew
not how to begin. He took refuge in dissimulation.

"Hush!" he whispered back. "Don't you see Mr. Claiborne's come
out?--He's going to read something to us."

Ross plumped down beside him. "Never mind the card; tell 'em," he
urged.

"Tell 'em yourself."

"No--let's cut and run."

"I--I think the worst of it is over. When Champe sees us she'll--"

Mention of Champe stiffened Ross's spine. If it had been glorious to
call upon her, how very terrible she would make it should they attempt
calling, fail, and the failure come to her knowledge! Some things were
easier to endure than others; he resolved to stay till the call was
made.

For half an hour the boys sat with drooping heads, and the old
gentleman read aloud, presumably to Aunt Missouri and themselves.
Finally their restless eyes discerned the two Claiborne girls walking
serene in Sunday trim under the trees at the edge of the lawn. Arms
entwined, they were whispering together and giggling a little. A
caller, Ross dared not use his voice to shout nor his legs to run
toward them.

"Why don't you go and talk to the girls, Rossie?" Aunt Missouri asked,
in the kindness of her heart. "Don't be noisy--it's Sunday, you
know--and don't get to playing anything that'll dirty up your good
clothes."

Ross pressed his lips hard together; his heart swelled with the rage
of the misunderstood. Had the card been in his possession, he would,
at that instant, have laid it on Aunt Missouri without a qualm.

"What is it?" demanded the old gentleman, a bit testily.

"The girls want to hear you read, father," said Aunt Missouri,
shrewdly; and she got up and trotted on short, fat ankles to the girls
in the arbor. The three returned together, Alicia casting curious
glances at the uncomfortable youths, Champe threatening to burst into
giggles with every breath.

Abner sat hard on his cap and blushed silently. Ross twisted his hat
into a three-cornered wreck.

The two girls settled themselves noisily on the upper step. The old
man read on and on. The sun sank lower. The hills were red in the west
as though a brush fire flamed behind their crests. Abner stole a
furtive glance at his companion in misery, and the dolor of Ross's
countenance somewhat assuaged his anguish. The freckle-faced boy was
thinking of the village over the hill, a certain pleasant white house
set back in a green yard, past whose gate, the two-plank sidewalk ran.
He knew lamps were beginning to wink in the windows of the neighbors
about, as though the houses said, "Our boys are all at home--but Ross
Pryor's out trying to call on the girls, and can't get anybody to
understand it." Oh, that he were walking down those two planks,
drawing a stick across the pickets, lifting high happy feet which
could turn in at that gate! He wouldn't care what the lamps said then.
He wouldn't even mind if the whole Claiborne family died laughing at
him--if only some power would raise him up from this paralyzing spot
and put him behind the safe barriers of his own home!

The old man's voice lapsed into silence; the light was becoming too
dim for his reading. Aunt Missouri turned and called over her shoulder
into the shadows of the big hall: "You Babe! Go put two extra plates
on the supper-table."

The boys grew red from the tips of their ears, and as far as any one
could see under their wilting collars. Abner felt the lump of gum come
loose and slip down a cold spine. Had their intentions but been known,
this inferential invitation would have been most welcome. It was but
to rise up and thunder out, "We came to call on the young ladies."

They did not rise. They did not thunder out anything. Babe brought a
lamp and set it inside the window, and Mr. Claiborne resumed his
reading. Champe giggled and said that Alicia made her. Alcia drew her
skirts about her, sniffed, and looked virtuous, and said she didn't
see anything funny to laugh at. The supper-bell rang. The family,
evidently taking it for granted that the boys would follow, went in.

Alone for the first time, Abner gave up. "This ain't any use," he
complained. "We ain't calling on anybody."

"Why didn't you lay on the card?" demanded Ross, fiercely. "Why
didn't you say: 'We've-just-dropped-into-call-on-Miss-Champe. It's-a
-pleasant-evening. We-feel-we-must-be-going,' like you said you would?
Then we could have lifted our hats and got away decently."

Abner showed no resentment.

"Oh, if it's so easy, why didn't you do it yourself?" he groaned.

"Somebody's coming," Ross muttered, hoarsely. "Say it now. Say it
quick."

The somebody proved to be Aunt Missouri, who advanced only as far as
the end of the hall and shouted cheerfully: "The idea of a growing boy
not coming to meals when the bell rings! I thought you two would be in
there ahead of us. Come on." And clinging to their head-coverings as
though these contained some charm whereby the owners might be rescued,
the unhappy callers were herded into the dining-room. There were many
things on the table that boys like. Both were becoming fairly
cheerful, when Aunt Missouri checked the biscuit-plate with: "I treat
my neighbors' children just like I'd want children of my own treated.
If your mothers let you eat all you want, say so, and I don't care;
but if either of them is a little bit particular, why, I'd stop at
six!"

Still reeling from this blow, the boys finally rose from the table and
passed out with the family, their hats clutched to their bosoms, and
clinging together for mutual aid and comfort. During the usual
Sunday-evening singing Champe laughed till Aunt Missouri threatened to
send her to bed. Abner's card slipped from his hand and dropped face
up on the floor. He fell upon it and tore it into infinitesimal
pieces.

"That must have been a love-letter," said Aunt Missouri, in a pause of
the music. "You boys are getting 'most old enough to think about
beginning to call on the girls." Her eyes twinkled.

Ross growled like a stoned cur. Abner took a sudden dive into _Hints
and Helps_, and came up with, "You flatter us, Miss Claiborne,"
whereat Ross snickered out like a human boy. They all stared at him.

"It sounds so funny to call Aunt Missouri 'Mis' Claiborne,'" the lad
of the freckles explained.

"Funny?" Aunt Missouri reddened. "I don't see any particular joke in
my having my maiden name."

Abner, who instantly guessed at what was in Ross's mind, turned white
at the thought of what they had escaped. Suppose he had laid on the
card and asked for Miss Claiborne!

"What's the matter, Champe?" inquired Ross, in a fairly natural tone.
The air he had drawn into his lungs when he laughed at Abner seemed to
relieve him from the numbing gentility which had bound his powers
since he joined Abner's ranks.

"Nothing. I laughed because you laughed," said the girl.

The singing went forward fitfully. Servants traipsed through the
darkened yard, going home for Sunday night. Aunt Missouri went out and
held some low-toned parley with them. Champe yawned with insulting
enthusiasm. Presently both girls quietly disappeared. Aunt Missouri
never returned to the parlor--evidently thinking that the girls would
attend to the final amenities with their callers. They were left alone
with old Mr. Claiborne. They sat as though bound in their chairs,
while the old man read in silence for a while. Finally he closed his
book, glanced about him, and observed absently:

"So you boys were to spend the night?" Then, as he looked at their
startled faces: "I'm right, am I not? You are to spent the night?"

Oh, for courage to say: "Thank you, no. We'll be going now. We just
came over to call on Miss Champe." But thought of how this would sound
in face of the facts, the painful realization that they dared not say
it because they _had_ not said it, locked their lips. Their feet were
lead; their tongues stiff and too large for their mouths. Like
creatures in a nightmare, they moved stiffly, one might have said
creakingly, up the stairs and received each--a bedroom candle!

"Good night, children," said the absent-minded old man. The two
gurgled out some sounds which were intended for words and doged behind
the bedroom door.

"They've put us to bed!" Abner's black eyes flashed fire. His nervous
hands clutched at the collar Ross had lent him. "That's what I get for
coming here with you, Ross Pryor!" And tears of humiliation stood in
his eyes.

In his turn Ross showed no resentment. "What I'm worried about is my
mother," he confessed. "She's so sharp about finding out things. She
wouldn't tease me--she'd just be sorry for me. But she'll think I went
home with you."

"I'd like to see my mother make a fuss about my calling on the girls!"
growled Abner, glad to let his rage take a safe direction.

"Calling on the girls! Have we called on any girls?" demanded
clear-headed, honest Ross.

"Not exactly--yet," admitted Abner, reluctantly. "Come on--let's go to
bed. Mr. Claiborne asked us, and he's the head of this household. It
isn't anybody's business what we came for."

"I'll slip off my shoes and lie down till Babe ties up the dog in the
morning," said Ross. "Then we can get away before any of the family is
up."

Oh, youth--youth--youth, with its rash promises! Worn out with misery
the boys slept heavily. The first sound that either heard in the
morning was Babe hammering upon their bedroom door. They crouched
guiltily and looked into each other's eyes. "Let pretend we ain't here
and he'll go away," breathed Abner.

But Babe was made of sterner stuff. He rattled the knob. He turned it.
He put in a black face with a grin which divided it from ear to ear.
"Cady say I mus' call dem fool boys to breakfus'," he announced. "I
never named you-all dat. Cady, she say dat."

"Breakfast!" echoed Ross, in a daze.

"Yessuh, breakfus'," reasserted Babe, coming entirely into the room
and looking curiously about him. "Ain't you-all done been to bed at
all?" wrapping his arms about his shoulders and shaking with silent
ecstasies of mirth. The boys threw themselves upon him and ejected
him.

"Sent up a servant to call us to breakfast," snarled Abner. "If they'd
only sent their old servant to the door in the first place, all this
wouldn't 'a' happened. I'm just that way when I get thrown off the
track. You know how it was when I tried to repeat those things to
you--I had to go clear back to the beginning when I got interrupted."

"Does that mean that you're still hanging around here to begin over
and make a call?" asked Ross, darkly. "I won't go down to breakfast if
you are."

Abner brightened a little as he saw Ross becoming wordy in his rage.
"I dare you to walk downstairs and say,
'We-just-dropped-in-to-call-on-Miss-Champe'!" he said.

"I--oh--I--darn it all! there goes the second bell. We may as well
trot down."

"Don't leave me, Ross," pleaded the Jilton boy. "I can't stay
here--and I can't go down."

The tone was hysterical. The boy with freckles took his companion by
the arm without another word and marched him down the stairs. "We may
get a chance yet to call on Champe all by herself out on the porch or
in the arbor before she goes to school," he suggested, by way of
putting some spine into the black-eyed boy.

An emphatic bell rang when they were half-way down the stairs.
Clutching their hats, they slunk into the dining-room. Even Mr.
Claiborne seemed to notice something unusual in their bearing as they
settled into the chairs assigned to them, and asked them kindly if
they had slept well.

It was plain that Aunt Missouri had been posting him as to her
understanding of the intentions of these young men. The state of
affairs gave an electric hilarity to the atmosphere. Babe travelled
from the sideboard to the table, trembling like chocolate pudding.
Cady insisted on bringing in the cakes herself, and grinned as she
whisked her starched blue skirts in and out of the dining-room. A
dimple even showed itself at the corners of pretty Alicia's prim
little mouth. Champe giggled, till Ross heard Cady whisper:

"Now you got one dem snickerin' spells agin. You gwine bust yo' dress
buttons off in the back ef you don't mind."

As the spirits of those about them mounted, the hearts of the two
youths sank--if it was like this among the Claibornes, what would it
be at school and in the world at large when their failure to connect
intention with result became village talk? Ross bit fiercely upon an
unoffending batter-cake, and resolved to make a call single-handed
before he left the house.

They went out of the dining-room, their hats as ever pressed to their
breasts. With no volition of their own, their uncertain young legs
carried them to the porch. The Claiborne family and household followed
like small boys after a circus procession. When the two turned, at
bay, yet with nothing between them and liberty but a hypnotism of
their own suggestion, they saw the black faces of the servants peering
over the family shoulders.

Ross was the boy to have drawn courage from the desperation of their
case, and made some decent if not glorious ending. But at the
psychological moment there came around the corner of the house that
most contemptible figure known to the Southern plantation, a
shirt-boy--a creature who may be described, for the benefit of those
not informed, as a pickaninny clad only in a long, coarse cotton
shirt. While all eyes were fastened upon him this inglorious
ambassador bolted forth his message:

"Yo' ma say"--his eyes were fixed upon Abner--"ef yo' don' come home,
she gwine come after yo'--an' cut yo' into inch pieces wid a rawhide
when she git yo'. Dat jest what Miss Hortense say."

As though such a book as _Hints and Helps_ had never existed, Abner
shot for the gate--he was but a hobbledehoy fascinated with the idea
of playing gentleman. But in Ross there were the makings of a man. For
a few half-hearted paces, under the first impulse of horror, he
followed his deserting chief, the laughter of the family, the
unrestrainable guffaws of the negroes, sounding in the rear. But when
Champe's high, offensive giggle, topping all the others, insulted his
ears, he stopped dead, wheeled, and ran to the porch faster than he
had fled from it. White as paper, shaking with inexpressible rage, he
caught and kissed the tittering girl, violently, noisily, before them
all.

The negroes fled--they dared not trust their feelings; even Alicia
sniggered unobtrusively; Grandfather Claiborne chuckled, and Aunt
Missouri frankly collapsed into her rocking-chair, bubbling with
mirth, crying out:

"Good for you, Ross! Seems you did know how to call on the girls,
after all."

But Ross, paying no attention, walked swiftly toward the gate. He had
served his novitiate. He would never be afraid again. With cheerful
alacrity he dodged the stones flung after him with friendly, erratic
aim by the girl upon whom, yesterday afternoon, he had come to make a
social call.



HOW THE WIDOW WON THE DEACON

By William James Lampton ( -1917)

[From Harper's Bazaar, April, 1911; copyright, 1911, by Harper &
Brothers; republished by permission.]

Of course the Widow Stimson never tried to win Deacon Hawkins, nor any
other man, for that matter. A widow doesn't have to try to win a man;
she wins without trying. Still, the Widow Stimson sometimes wondered
why the deacon was so blind as not to see how her fine farm adjoining
his equally fine place on the outskirts of the town might not be
brought under one management with mutual benefit to both parties at
interest. Which one that management might become was a matter of
future detail. The widow knew how to run a farm successfully, and a
large farm is not much more difficult to run than one of half the
size. She had also had one husband, and knew something more than
running a farm successfully. Of all of which the deacon was perfectly
well aware, and still he had not been moved by the merging spirit of
the age to propose consolidation.

This interesting situation was up for discussion at the Wednesday
afternoon meeting of the Sisters' Sewing Society.

"For my part," Sister Susan Spicer, wife of the Methodist minister,
remarked as she took another tuck in a fourteen-year-old girl's skirt
for a ten-year-old--"for my part, I can't see why Deacon Hawkins and
Kate Stimson don't see the error of their ways and depart from them."

"I rather guess _she_ has," smiled Sister Poteet, the grocer's better
half, who had taken an afternoon off from the store in order to be
present.

"Or is willing to," added Sister Maria Cartridge, a spinster still
possessing faith, hope, and charity, notwithstanding she had been on
the waiting list a long time.