Seventeen Part 11

"What, mamma?" Jane asked as her mother paused.

"Well--it happens. People do get like that at his age, Jane."

"Does everybody?"

"No, I suppose not everybody. Just some."

Jane's interest was roused. "Well, do those that do, mamma," she inquired, "do they all act like Willie?"

"No," said Mrs. Baxter. "That's the trouble; you can't tell what's coming."

Jane nodded. "I think I know," she said. "You mean Willie--"

William himself interrupted her. He returned violently to the doorway, his hair still tousled, and, standing upon the threshold, said, sternly:

"What is that child wearing her best dress for?"

"Willie!" Mrs. Baxter cried. "Go brush your hair!"

"I wish to know what that child is all dressed up for?" he insisted.

"To please you! Don't you want her to look her best at your tea?"

"I thought that was it!" he cried, and upon this confirmation of his worst fears he did increased violence to his rumpled hair. "I suspected it, but I wouldn't 'a' believed it! You mean to let this child--you mean to let--" Here his agitation affected his throat and his utterance became clouded. A few detached phrases fell from him: "--Invite MY friends--children's party--ye G.o.ds!--think Miss Pratt plays dolls--"

"Jane will be very good," his mother said. "I shouldn't think of not having her, Willie, and you needn't bother about your friends; they'll be very glad to see her. They all know her, except Miss Pratt, perhaps, and--" Mrs. Baxter paused; then she asked, absently: "By the way, haven't I heard somewhere that she likes pretending to be a little girl, herself?"

"WHAT!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Baxter, remaining calm; "I'm sure I've heard somewhere that she likes to talk 'baby-talk.'"

Upon this a tremor pa.s.sed over William, after which he became rigid.

"You ask a lady to your house," he began, "and even before she gets here, before you've even seen her, you pa.s.s judgment upon one of the--one of the n.o.blest--"

"Good gracious! _I_ haven't 'pa.s.sed judgment.' If she does talk 'baby-talk,' I imagine she does it very prettily, and I'm sure I've no objection. And if she does do it, why should you be insulted by my mentioning it?"

"It was the way you said it," he informed her, icily.

"Good gracious! I just said it!" Mrs. Baxter laughed, and then, probably a little out of patience with him, she gave way to that innate mischievousness in such affairs which is not unknown to her s.e.x. "You see, Willie, if she pretends to be a cunning little girl, it will be helpful to Jane to listen and learn how."

William uttered a cry; he knew that he was struck, but he was not sure how or where. He was left with a blank mind and no repartee. Again he dashed from the room.

In the hall, near the open front door, he came to a sudden halt, and Mrs. Baxter and Jane heard him calling loudly to the industrious Genesis:

"Here! You go cut the gra.s.s in the back yard, and for Heaven's sake, take that dog with you!"

"Gra.s.s awready cut roun' back," responded the amiable voice of Genesis, while the lawnmower ceased not to whir. "Cut all 'at back yod 's mawnin'."

"Well, you can't cut the front yard now. Go around in the back yard and take that dog with you."

"Nemmine 'bout 'at back yod! Ole Clem ain' trouble n.o.body."

"You hear what I tell you?" William shouted. "You do what I say and you do it quick!"

Genesis laughed gaily. "I got my gra.s.s to cut!"

"You decline to do what I command you?" William roared.

"Yes, indeedy! Who pay me my wages? 'At's MY boss. You' ma say, 'Genesis, you git all 'at lawn mowed b'fo' sundown.' No, suh! Nee'n'

was'e you' bref on me, 'cause I'm got all MY time good an' took up!"

Once more William presented himself fatefully to his mother and Jane.

"May I just kindly ask you to look out in the front yard?"

"I'm familiar with it, Willie," Mrs. Baxter returned, a little wearily.

"I mean I want you to look at Genesis."

"I'm familiar with his appearance, too," she said. "Why in the world do you mind his cutting the gra.s.s?"

William groaned. "Do you honestly want guests coming to this house to see that awful old darky out there and know that HE'S the kind of servants we employ? Ye G.o.ds!"

"Why, Genesis is just a neighborhood outdoors darky, Willie; he works for half a dozen families besides us. Everybody in this part of town knows him."

"Yes," he cried, "but a lady that didn't live here wouldn't. Ye G.o.ds!

What do you suppose she WOULD think? You know what he's got on!"

"It's a sort of sleeveless jersey he wears, Willie, I think."

"No, you DON'T think that!" he cried, with great bitterness. "You know it's not a jersey! You know perfectly well what it is, and yet you expect to keep him out there when--when one of the one of the n.o.bl--when my friends arrive! And they'll think that's our DOG out there, won't they? When intelligent people come to a house and see a dog sitting out in front, they think it's the family in the house's dog, don't they?"

William's condition becoming more and more disordered, he paced the room, while his agony rose to a climax. "Ye G.o.ds! What do you think Miss Pratt will think of the people of this town, when she's invited to meet a few of my friends and the first thing she sees is a n.i.g.g.e.r in his unders.h.i.+rt? What 'll she think when she finds that child's eaten up half the food, and the people have to explain that the dog in the front yard belongs to the darky--" He interrupted himself with a groan: "And prob'ly she wouldn't believe it. Anybody'd SAY they didn't own a dog like that! And that's what you want her to see, before she even gets inside the house! Instead of a regular gardener in livery like we ought to have, and a bulldog or a good Airedale or a fox-hound, or something, the first things you want intelligent people from out of town to see are that awful old darky and his mongrel scratchin' fleas and like as not lettin' 'em get on other people! THAT'd be nice, wouldn't it? Go out to tea expecting decent treatment and get fl--"

"WILLIE!"

Mrs. Baxter managed to obtain his attention. "If you'll go and brush your hair I'll send Genesis and Clematis away for the rest of the afternoon. And then if you 'll sit down quietly and try to keep cool until your friends get here, I'll--"

"'Quietly'!" he echoed, shaking his head over this mystery. "I'm the only one that IS quiet around here. Things 'd be in a fine condition to receive guests if I didn't keep pretty cool, I guess!"

"There, there," she said, soothingly. "Go and brush your hair. And change your collar, Willie; it's all wilted. I'll send Genesis away."

His wandering eye failed to meet hers with any intelligence. "Collar,"

he muttered, as if in soliloquy. "Collar."

"Change it!" said Mrs. Baxter, raising her voice. "It's WILTED."

He departed in a dazed manner.

Pa.s.sing through the hall, he paused abruptly, his eye having fallen with sudden disapproval upon a large, heavily framed, gla.s.s-covered engraving, "The Battle of Gettysburg," which hung upon the wall, near the front door. Undeniably, it was a picture feeble in decorative quality; no doubt, too, William was right in thinking it as unworthy of Miss Pratt, as were Jane and Genesis and Clematis. He felt that she must never see it, especially as the frame had been chipped and had a corner broken, but it was more pleasantly effective where he found it than where (in his nervousness) he left it. A few hasty jerks snapped the elderly green cords by which it was suspended; then he laid the picture upon the floor and with his handkerchief made a curious labyrinth of avenues in the large oblong area of fine dust which this removal disclosed upon the wall. Pausing to wipe his hot brow with the same implement, he remembered that some one had made allusions to his collar and hair, whereupon he sprang to the stairs, mounted two at a time, rushed into his own room, and confronted his streaked image in the mirror.