The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI

Then I tried to draw a lurid picture of his revolt from her apron-strings.

"Oh, Harry's a good boy," she said. "You can't make me believe that two days has altered his whole character. I'll answer for his doing what I want."

I felt a precisely similar conviction, and my heart sank into my shoes.

At this moment there was a tap at the door, and another old lady bounced in. She was stout, jolly-looking and effusive. The greetings between the pair were warm, and they were evidently old friends. But underneath the new-comer's gush and noise I was dimly conscious of a sort of gay hostility. She was exultant and frightened, both at once, and her eyes were sparkling.

"Well, what do you think?" she cried out explosively.

Mrs. Jones' lips tightened. There was a mean streak in that old woman. I could see she was feeling for her little hatchet, and was getting out her little gun.

"Bertha!" exploded the old lady. "Bertha—"

(Mysterious mental processes at once informed me that this was none other than Bertha's mother.)

Mrs. Jones was coolly taking aim. I was reminded of that old military dictum: "Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!"

"Bertha," vociferated the old lady fiercely—"Bertha has been secretly married to Mr. Stuffenhammer for the last three months!"

Another series of kinematographic mental processes informed me that Mr. Stuffenhammer was an immense catch.

"Twenty thousand dollars a year, and her own carriage," continued Mrs. McNutt gloatingly. "You could have knocked me down with a feather. Bertha is such a considerate child; she insisted on marrying secretly so that she could tone it down by degrees to poor Harry; though there was no engagement or anything like that, she could not help feeling, of course, that she owed it to the dear boy to gradually—"

Mrs. Jones never turned a hair or moved a muscle.

"You needn't pity Harry," she said. "I've just got the good news that he's engaged to one of the sweetest and richest girls in Morristown."

I jumped for my hat and ran.

V

You never saw anybody so electrified as Jones. For a good minute he couldn't even speak. It was like bringing a horseback reprieve to the hero on the stage. He repeated "Stuffenhammer, Stuffenhammer," in tones that Henry Irving might have envied, while I gently undid the noose around his neck. I led him under a tree and told him to buck up. He did so—slowly and surely—and then began to ask me agitated questions about proposing. He deferred to me as though I had spent my whole life Bluebearding through the social system. He wanted to be coached how to do it, you know. I told him to rip out the words—any old words—and then kiss her.

"Don't let there be any embarrassing pause," I said. "A girl hates pauses."

"It seems a great liberty," he returned. "It doesn't strike me as r-r-respectful."

"You try it," I said. "It's the only way."

"I'll be glad when it's over," he remarked dreamily.

"Whatever you do, keep clear of set speeches," I went on. "Blurt it out, no matter how badly—but with all the fire and ginger in you."

He gazed at me like a dead calf.

"Here goes," he said, and started on a trembling walk toward the house.

I don't know whether he was afraid, or didn't get the chance, or what it was; but at any rate the afternoon wore on without the least sign of his coming to time. I kept tab on him as well as I could—checkers with Miss Drayton—half an hour writing letters—a long talk with the major—and finally his getting lost altogether in the shrubbery with an old lady. Freddy said the suspense was killing her, and was terribly despondent and miserable. I couldn't interest her in the Seventy-second Street house at all. She asked what was the good of working and worrying, and figuring and making lists—when in all probability it would be another girl that would live there. She had an awfully mean opinion of my constancy, and was intolerably philosophical and Oh-I-wouldn't-blame-you-the-least-little-bit-if-you-did-go-off-and-marry-somebody-else! She took a pathetic pleasure in loving me, losing me, and then weeping over the dear dead memory. She said nobody ever got what they wanted, anyway; and might she come, when she was old and ugly and faded and weary, to take care of my children and be a sort of dear old aunty in the Seventy-second Street house. I said certainly not, and we had a fight right away.

As we were dressing for dinner that night I took Jones to task, and tried to stiffen him up. I guess I must have mismanaged it somehow, for he said he'd thank me to keep my paws out of his affairs, and then went into the bath-room, where he shaved and growled for ten whole minutes. I itched to throw a bootjack at him, but compromised on doing a little growling myself. Afterward we got into our clothes in silence, and as he went out first he slammed the door.

It was a disheartening evening. We played progressive uchre for a silly prize, and we all got shuffled up wrong and had to stay so. Then the major did amateur conjuring till we nearly died. I was thankful to sneak out-of-doors and smoke a cigar under the starlight. I walked up and down, consigning Jones to—well, where I thought he belonged. I thought of the time I had wasted over the fellow—the good money—the hopes—I was savage with disappointment, and when I heard Freddy softly calling me from the veranda I zigzagged away through the trees toward the lodge gate. There are moments when a man is better left alone. Besides, I was in one of those self-tormenting humors when it is a positive pleasure to pile on the agony. When you're eighty-eight per cent. miserable it's hell not to reach par. I was sore all over, and I wanted the balm—the consolation—to be found in the company of those cold old stars, who had looked down in their time on such countless generations of human asses. It gave me a wonderful sense of fellowship with the past and future.

I was reflecting on what an infinitesimal speck I was in the general scheme of things, when I heard the footfall of another human speck, stumbling through the dark and carrying a dress-suit case. It was Jones himself, outward bound, and doing five knots an hour. I was after him in a second, doing six.

"Jones!" I cried.

He never even turned round.

I grabbed him by the arm. He wasn't going to walk away from me like that.

"Where are you going?" I demanded.

"Home!"

"But say, stop; you can't do that. It's too darned rude. We don't break up till to-morrow."

"I'm breaking up now," he said.

"But—"

"Let go my arm—!"

"Oh, but, my dear chap—" I began.

"Don't you dear chap me!"

We strode on in silence. Even his back looked sullen, and his face under the gaslights—

"Westoby," he broke out suddenly, "if there's one thing I'm sensitive about it is my name. Slap me in the face, turn the hose on me, rip the coat off my back—and you'd be astounded by my mildness. But when it comes to my name I—I'm a tiger!"

"A tiger," I repeated encouragingly.

"It all went swimmingly," he continued in a tone of angry confidence. "For five seconds I was the happiest man in the United States. I—I did everything you said, you know, and I was dumfounded at my own success. S-s-she loves me, Westoby."

I gazed inquiringly at the dress-suit case.

"We don't belong to any common Joneses. We're Connecticut Joneses. In fact, we're the only Joneses—and the name is as dear to me, as sacred, as I suppose that of Westoby is, perhaps, to you. And yet—and yet—do you know what she actually said to me? Said to me, holding my hand, and, and—that the only thing she didn't like about me was my name."

I contrived to get out, "Good heavens!" with the proper astonishment.

"I told her that Van Coort didn't strike me as being anything very extra."

"Wouldn't it have been wiser to—?"

"Oh, for myself, I'd do anything in the world for her. But a fellow has to show a little decent pride. A fellow owes something to his family, doesn't he? As a man I love the ground she walks on; as a Jones—well, if she feels like that about it—I told her she had better wait for a De Montmorency."

"But she didn't say she wouldn't marry you, did she?"

"N-o-o-o!"

"She didn't ask you to change your name, did she?"

"N-o-o-o!"

"And do you mean to say that just for one unfortunate remark—a remark that any one might have made in the agitation of the moment—you're deliberately turning your back on her, and her broken heart!"

"Oh, she's red-hot, too, you know, over what I said about the Van Coorts."

"She couldn't have realized that you belonged to the Connecticut Joneses. I didn't know it. I—"

"Well, it's all off now," he said.

It was a mile to the depot. For Jones it was a mile of reproaches, scoldings, lectures and insults. For myself I shall ever remember it as the mile of my life. I pleaded, argued, extenuated and explained. My lifelong happiness—Freddy—the Seventy-second Street house—were walking away from me in the dark while I jerked unavailingly at Jones' coat-tails. The whole outfit disappeared into a car, leaving me on the platform with the ashes of my hopes. Of all obstinate, mulish, pig-headed, copper-riveted—

I was lucky enough to find Eleanor crying softly to herself in a corner of the veranda. The sight of her tears revived my fainting courage. I thought of Bruce and the spider, and waded in.

"Eleanor," I said, "I've just been seeing poor Jones off."

She sobbed out something to the effect that she didn't care.

"No, you can't care very much," I said, "or you wouldn't send a man like that—a splendid fellow—a member of one of the oldest and proudest families of Connecticut—to his death."

"Death?"

"Well, he's off for Japan to-morrow. They're getting through fifty doctors a week out there at the front. They're shot down faster than they can set them up."

I was unprepared for the effect of this on Eleanor. For two cents she would have fainted then and there. It's awful to hear a woman moan, and clench her teeth, and pant for breath.

"Oh, Eleanor, can't you do anything?"

"I am helpless, Ezra. My pride—my woman's pride—"

"Oh, how can you let such trifles stand between you? Think of him out there, in his tattered Japanese uniform—so far from home, so lonely, so heartbroken—standing undaunted in that rain of steel, while—"

"Oh, Ezra, stop! I can't bear it! I can't bear it!"

"Is the love of three years to be thrown aside like an old glove, just because—"

Her face was so wild and strained that the lies froze upon my tongue.

"Oh, Ezra, I could follow him barefooted through the snow if only he—"

"He's leaving Grand Central to-morrow at ten forty-five," I said.

She fumbled at her neck, and almost tore away the diamond locket that reposed there.

"Take him this," she whispered hoarsely. "Take it to him at once, and say I sent it. Say that I beg him to return—that my pride crumbles at the thought of his going away so far into danger."

I put the locket carefully into my pocket.

"And, Eleanor, try and don't rub him the wrong way about his name. Is it worth while? There have to be Joneses, you know."

"Tell him," she burst out, "tell him—oh, I never meant to wound him—truly, I didn't … a name that's good enough for him is good enough for me!"

The next morning at nine I pulled up my Porcher-Mufflin car before Jones' door. He was sitting at his table reading a book, and he made no motion to rise as I came in. He gave me a pale, expressionless stare instead, such as an ancient Christian might have worn when the call-boy told him the lions were ready in the Colosseum. Resignation, obstinacy and defiance—all nicely blended under a turn-the-other-cheek exterior. He looked woebegone, and his thin, handsome face betrayed a sleepless night and a breakfastless morning. I could feel that my presence was the last straw to this unfortunate medical camel.

I threw in a genial remark about the weather, and took a seat.

Jones hunched himself together, and squirmed a sad little squirm.

"Mr. Westoby," he said, "I once made use of a very strong expression in regard to you. I said, if you remember, that I'd be obliged if you'd keep your paws—"

"Don't apologize," I interrupted. "I forgot it long ago."

"You've taken me up wrong," he continued drearily. "I should like you to consider the remark repeated now. Yes, sir, repeated."

"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed.

"You have a very tough epidermis," he went on. "Quite the toughest epidermis I have met with in my whole professional career. A paper adequately treating your epidermis would make a sensation before any medical society."

Somehow I couldn't feel properly insulted. The whole business struck me as irresistibly comical. I lay back in my chair—my uninvited chair—and roared with laughter.

I couldn't forbear asking him what treatment he'd recommend.

He pointed to the door, and said laconically: "Fresh air."

I retorted by laying the diamond locket before him.

"My dear fellow," I said, as he gazed at it transfixed, "don't let us go on like a pair of fools. Eleanor charged me to give you this, and beg you to return."

I don't believe he heard me at all. That flashing trinket was far more eloquent than any words of mine. He laid his head in his hands beside it, and his whole body trembled with emotion. He trembled and trembled, till finally I got tired of waiting. I poked him in the back, and reminded him that my car was waiting down stairs. He rose with a strange, bewildered air, and submitted like a child to be led into the street. He had the locket clenched in his hand, and every now and then he would glance at it as though unable to believe his eyes. I shut him into the tonneau, and took a seat beside my chauffeur.

"Let her out, James," I said.

James let her out with a vengeance. There was a sunny-haired housemaid at the Van Coorts' … and it was a crack, new, four-cylinder car with a direct drive on the top speed. Off we went like the wind, jouncing poor Jones around the tonneau like a pea in a pill-box. But he didn't care. Was he not seraphically whizzing through space, obeying the diamond telegram of love? In the gentle whizzle and bang of the whole performance he even ventured to raise his voice in song, and I could overhear him behind me, adding a lyrical finish to the hum of the machinery. It was a walloping run, and we only throttled down on the outskirts of Morristown. You see I had to coach him about that Japanese war business, or else there might be trouble! So I leaned over the back seat and gently broke it to him. I thought I had managed it rather well. I felt sure he could understand, I said, the absolute need of a little—embellishing and—

"Let me out," he said.

I feverishly went on explaining.

"If you don't let me out I'll climb out," he said, and began to make as good as his word over the tonneau.

Of course, there was nothing for it but to stop the car.

Jones deliberately descended and headed for New York.

I ran after him, while the chauffeur turned the car round and slowly followed us both. It was a queer procession. First Jones, then I, then the car.

Finally I overtook him.

"Jones," I panted. "Jones."

He muttered something about Ananias, and speeded up.

"But it was an awfully tight place," I pleaded. "Something had to be done; you must make allowances; it was the first thing that came into my head—and you must admit that it worked, Jones. Didn't she send you the locket? Didn't she—?"

"What a prancing, show-off, matinée fool you've made me look!" he burst out. "I have an old mother to support. I have an increasing practice. I have already attracted some little attention in my chosen field—eye, ear and throat. A nice figure I'd cut, traipsing around the battlefields in a kimono, and looking for a kindly bullet to lay me low. If I were ever tempted by such a thing—which God forbid—wouldn't I prefer to spread bacilli on buttered toast?"

"I never thought of that," I said humbly.

"I have known retail liars," he went on. "But I guess you are the only wholesaler in the business. When other people are content with ones and twos, you get them out in grosses, packed for export!"

He went on slamming me like this for miles. Anybody else would have given him up as hopeless. I don't want to praise myself, but if I have one good quality it's staying power. I pleaded and argued, and expostulated and explained, with the determination of a man whose back is to the wall. I wasn't going to lose Freddy so long as there was breath in my body. However, it wasn't the least good in the world. Jones was as impervious as sole-leather, and as unshaken as a marble pillar.

Then I played my last card.

I told him the truth! Not the whole truth, of course, but within ten per cent. of it. About Freddy, you know, and how she was determined not to marry before her elder sister, and how Eleanor's only preference seemed to be for him, and how with such a slender clue to work on I had engineered everything up to this point.

"If I have seemed to you intolerably prying and officious," I said, "well, at any rate, Jones, there's my excuse. It rests with you to give me Freddy or take her from me. Turn back, and you'll make me the happiest man alive; go forward, and—and—"

I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

His tread lost some of its elasticity. He was short-circuiting inside. Positively he began to look sort of sympathetic and human.

"Westoby," he said at last, in a voice almost of awe, "when they get up another world's fair you must have a building to yourself. You're colossal, that's what you are!"

"I'm only in love," I said.

"Well, that's the love that moves mountains," he said. "If anybody had told me that I should...." He stopped irresolutely on the word.

"Oh, to think I have to stand for all that rot!" he bleated.

I was too wise to say a word. I simply motioned James to switch the car around and back up. I shooed Jones into the tonneau and turned the knob on him. He snuggled back in the cushions, and smiled—yes smiled—with a beautiful, blue-eyed, far-away, indulgent expression that warmed me like spring sunshine. Not that I felt absolutely safe even yet—of course I couldn't—but still—

We ran into Freddy and Eleanor at the lodge gates. I had already telephoned the former to expect us, so as to have everything fall out naturally when the time came. We stopped the car, and descended—Jones and I—and he walked straight off with Eleanor, while I side-stepped with Freddy.

She and I were almost too excited to talk. It was now or never, you know, and there was an awfully solemn look about both their backs that was either reassuring or alarming—we couldn't decide quite which. Freddy and I simply held our breath and waited.

Finally, after an age, Jones and Eleanor turned, still close in talk, still solemn and enigmatical, and drew toward us very slowly and deliberately. When they had got quite close, and the tension was at the breaking point, Eleanor suddenly made a little rush, and, with a loud sob, threw her arms round Freddy's neck.

Jones fidgeted nervously about, and seemed to quail under my questioning eyes. It was impossible to tell whether things had gone right or not. I waited for him to speak.... I saw words forming themselves hesitatingly on his lips … he bent toward me quite confidentially....

"Say, old man," he whispered, "is there any place around here where a fellow can buy an engagement ring?"

THE BEAR STORY

THAT ALEX "IST MAKED UP HIS-OWN-SE'F"BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEYW'y, wunst they wuz a Little Boy went outIn the woods to shoot a Bear. So, he went out'Way in the grea'-big woods—he did.—An' heWuz goin' along—an' goin' along, you know,An' purty soon he heerd somepin' go "Wooh!"—Ist thataway—"Woo-ooh!" An' he wuz skeered,He wuz. An' so he runned an' clumbed a tree—A grea'-big tree, he did,—a sicka-more tree.An' nen he heerd it ag'in: an' he looked round,An' 't'uz a Bear!—a grea'-big shore-nuff Bear!—No: 't'uz two Bears, it wuz—two grea'-big Bears—One of 'em wuz—ist one's a grea'-big Bear.—But they ist boff went "Wooh!"—An' here they comeTo climb the tree an' git the Little BoyAn' eat him up!                                                       An' nen the Little BoyHe 'uz skeered worse'n ever! An' here comeThe grea'-big Bear a-climbin' th' tree to gitThe Little Boy an' eat him up—Oh, no!—It 'uzn't the Big Bear 'at dumb the tree—It 'uz the Little Bear. So here he comeClimbin' the tree—an' climbin' the tree! Nen whenHe git wite clos't to the Little Boy, w'y nenThe Little Boy he ist pulled up his gunAn' shot the Bear, he did, an' killed him dead!An' nen the Bear he falled clean on down outThe tree—away clean to the ground, he did—Spling-splung! he falled plum down, an' killed him, too!An' lit wite side o' where the Big Bear's at.An' nen the Big Bear's awful mad, you bet!—'Cause—'cause the Little Boy he shot his gunAn' killed the Little Bear.—'Cause the Big BearHe—he 'uz the Little Bear's Papa.—An' so hereHe come to climb the big old tree an' gitThe Little Boy an' eat him up! An' whenThe Little Boy he saw the grea'-big BearA-comin', he 'uz badder skeered, he wuz,Than any time! An' so he think he'll climbUp higher—'way up higher in the treeThan the old Bear kin climb, you know.—But he—He can't climb higher 'an old Bears kin climb,—'Cause Bears kin climb up higher in the treesThan any little Boys in all the Wo-r-r-ld!An' so here come the grea'-big Bear, he did,—A-climbin' up—an' up the tree, to gitThe Little Boy an' eat him up! An' soThe Little Boy he clumbed on higher, an' higher,An' higher up the tree—an' higher—an' higher—An' higher'n iss-here house is!—An' here comeTh' old Bear—clos'ter to him all the time!—An' nen—first thing you know,—when th' old Big BearWuz wite clos't to him—nen the Little BoyIst jabbed his gun wite in the old Bear's moufAn' shot an' killed him dead!—No; I fergot,—He didn't shoot the grea'-big Bear at all—'Cause they 'uz no load in the gun, you know—'Cause when he shot the Little Bear, w'y, nenNo load 'uz any more nen in the gun!But th' Little Boy clumbed higher up, he did—He clumbed lots higher—an' on up higher—an' higherAn' higher—tel he ist can't climb no higher,'Cause nen the limbs 'uz all so little, 'wayUp in the teeny-weeny tip-top ofThe tree, they'd break down wiv him ef he don'tBe keerful! So he stop an' think: An' nenHe look around—An' here come th' old Bear!An' so the Little Boy make up his mindHe's got to ist git out o' there some way!—'Cause here come the old Bear!—so clos't, his bref'sPurt 'nigh so's he kin feel how hot it isAg'inst his bare feet—ist like old "Ring's" brefWhen he's ben out a-huntin' an's all tired.So when th' old Bear's so clos't—the Little BoyIst gives a grea'-big jump fer 'nother tree—No!—no he don't do that!—I tell you whatThe Little Boy does:—W'y, nen—w'y, he—Oh, yes—The Little Boy he finds a hole up there'At's in the tree—an' climbs in there an' hides—An' nen th' old Bear can't find the Little BoyAt all!—But, purty soon th' old Bear findsThe Little Boy's gun 'at's up there—'cause the gunIt's too tall to tooked wiv him in the hole.So, when the old Bear find' the gun, he knowsThe Little Boy's ist hid 'round somers there,—An' th' old Bear 'gins to snuff an' sniff around,An' sniff an' snuff around—so's he kin findOut where the Little Boy's hid at.—An' nen—nen—Oh, yes!—W'y, purty soon the old Bear climbs'Way out on a big limb—a grea'-long limb,—An' nen the Little Boy climbs out the holeAn' takes his ax an' chops the limb off!… NenThe old Bear falls k-splunge! clean to the groundAn' bust an' kill hisse'f plum dead, he did!An' nen the Little Boy he git his gunAn' 'menced a-climbin' down the tree ag'in—No!—no, he didn't git his gun—'cause whenThe Bear falled, nen the gun falled, too—An' brokedIt all to pieces, too!—An' nicest gun!—His Pa ist buyed it!—An' the Little BoyIst cried, he did; an' went on climbin' downThe tree—an' climbin' down—an' climbin' down!—An'-sir! when he 'uz purt'-nigh down,—w'y, nenThe old Bear he jumped up ag'in!—an' heAin't dead at all—ist 'tendin' thataway,So he kin git the Little Boy an' eatHim up! But the Little Boy he 'uz too smartTo climb clean down the tree.—An' the old BearHe can't climb up the tree no more—'cause whenHe fell, he broke one of his—he broke allHis legs!—an' nen he couldn't climb! But heIst won't go 'way an' let the Little BoyCome down out of the tree. An' the old BearIst growls 'round there, he does—ist growls an' goes"Wooh!—woo-ooh!" all the time! An' Little BoyHe haf to stay up in the tree—all night—An' 'thout no supper neether!—On'y theyWuz apples on the tree!—An' Little BoyEt apples—ist all night—an' cried—an' cried!Nen when 't'uz morning th' old Bear went "Wooh!"Ag'in, an' try to climb up in the treeAn' git the Little Boy.—But he can'tClimb t'save his soul, he can't!—An' oh! he's mad!—He ist tear up the ground! an' go "Woo-ooh!"An'—Oh, yes!—purty soon, when morning's comeAll light—so's you kin see, you know,—w'y, nenThe old Bear finds the Little Boy's gun, you know,'At's on the ground.—(An' it ain't broke at all—I ist said that!) An' so the old Bear thinkHe'll take the gun an' shoot the Little Boy:—But Bears they don't know much 'bout shootin' guns:So when he go to shoot the Little Boy,The old Bear got the other end the gunAg'in' his shoulder, 'stid o' th'other end—So when he try to shoot the Little Boy,It shot the Bear, it did—an' killed him dead!An' nen the Little Boy clumb down the treeAn' chopped his old woolly head off:—Yes, an' killedThe other Bear ag'in, he did—an' killedAll boff the bears, he did—an' tuk 'em homeAn' cooked'em, too, an' et'em!                                                                —An' that's all.