Читать книгу The Classic Humor MEGAPACK ® - Эдгар Аллан По - Страница 11
ОглавлениеESPECIALLY MEN, by George Randolph Chester
The tantalizing stream on the other side of the hedge seemed, to the hot and tired young man, to lead the way straight into the heart of Paradise itself. Six weary miles of white highway, wavering with heat and misty with hovering dust clouds, still lay between himself and the railroad that would whisk him away to the city. Behind him, conquered at fatiguing cost, were six more miles, stretching back to the village where not even a team could be hired on Sunday. Rather than spend the day in that dismal abode of Puritanism he had fled on foot, his business done, and this little creek, mocking, alluring, irresistible, was the only cheerful thing on which his eyes had rested in that whole stifling journey.
Even this had a drawback. He glanced up again, with a puzzled frown, at the queer sign glaring down at him from the hedge. It was the third one of the sort in the past quarter of a mile:
TRESPASSERS
are warned from these premises
under penalty of the law
ESPECIALLY MEN
He turned away impatiently. Dust, dust, dust! He could feel it pasty on his tongue, gritty on his lips, grimy on his face. It had stiffened his hair, clogged his nostrils, sifted through his clothing, settled into his shoes. It was everywhere and all-pervading.
The forbidden creek, in the very refinement of derision, suddenly bubbled into a bar of clinking song—a perfect ecstasy of crystal notes—then as suddenly died down, babbling and gurgling, and flowed smoothly on, whispering and murmuring to itself of the delights to come in the heart of the cool woods. Just here, with a swift sweep between mossy, curved banks, the stream turned its back to him and hurried away among the trees with a coy invitation that was well-nigh maddening. He remembered just such a creek as that where, as a boy, he had used to go with his companions after school.
How delightful those boyish swims had been! In fancy he could still feel the chill shock as he had plunged in, the sharp catching of his breath, the resounding splash, the shower of icy drops, the soft yielding of the water—then the delicious buoyancy that had pervaded his limbs. He wondered, with a whimsical smile, how long he could “stay under,” and if he could hold his eyes open while he dived, and if he could still swim “dog fashion” and back-handed on his back, and if he could float and tread water and “turtle.”
How cool and shady and restful it looked in there! Just before the creek turned behind a clump of dogwood, a patch of sunlight lay on it, shooting down through the misty twilight of broad oak trees, and the surface of the water dimpled and glinted and laughed and flirted at him, before it slipped away into leaf-dimmed sylvan solitudes, in a way that was not to be longer resisted. He gave one more glance of distaste at the white hot road and gave up the struggle.
“Here goes the ‘especial man,’” he said, looking up at the sign in smiling defiance, and forced his way through the hedge.
What a coquettish little stream that was! It leaped merrily down tiny, boulder-strewn inclines to show him how light-hearted and care-free it could be; it flowed sedately between narrow banks of turf to display its perfect propriety; it coyly hid behind walls of graceful, slender willows; it danced impudently into the open and dashed across clear spaces in frantic haste to escape him; it spread out, clear and limpid, upon little bars of golden sand, pretending frankly to reveal its pure, inmost depths; then raced on again, ever beckoning, ever enticing, ever cajoling, until at last it plunged straight at a wall of dense, tangled underbrush, and, with a vixenish gurgle of delight at its own blandishing duplicity, vanished underneath the low sweeping mass of leaves without even so much as a good-by!
The pursuer was not to be daunted. Doggedly he fought his way around and through the swampy underbrush and presently stood blinking his delighted eyes in a little natural clearing that was a glorious climax to all the tantalizing coquetry of the creek. Encircled by drooping, long-leaved willows that were themselves enringed by stately trees, lay a broad, deep pool, clear as crystal, one side carpeted with velvety turf and screened with leafy draperies, and the whole canopied by the smiling blue sky. With a cry of pleasure the young man hastily threw off his clothing, and, as he undressed, a school-boy taunt whimsically recurred to him.
“Last one in’s a rotten egg!” he shouted to the squirrel that he caught peering at him from the far side of a limb, and plunged into the pool.
One by one he gleefully tried all the old boyish tricks until at last, tiring of them, he lay floating peacefully on his back, looking up at the sky and covering the entire visible surface of it with air castles, as young men will. There was no dusty road, no broiling hot sun, no six miles of weary distance yet to cover.
There was a rustle and a patter among the trees. Two dogs came bounding to the edge of the water and barked at the bather in friendly fashion. They were bouncing big St. Bernards, but scarcely more than puppies, and they capered and danced in awkward delight when he splashed water at them. As a further evidence of their friendly feeling they suddenly pounced upon his clothing.
“Hey there!” cried the bather, and scrambled out to rescue his apparel. It was kind of him, the dogs thought, to take so much interest in the game, and, not to be outdone in heartiness, they scampered off through the woods, taking the clothes with them. All they left behind was his hat, his shoes and one sock, his collar and cuffs and tie. He threw sticks and stones after them and had started to chase them when a new and dreadful sound smote on his ear. It was the voices of women!
There was but one safe hiding-place—the pool. With rare presence of mind he concealed the pathetic remnant of his belongings and plunged just in time, diving under a clump of low-hanging willows where a friendly root gave support to his arms and breast.
Two elderly ladies of severe and forbidding aspect came slowly within his range of vision. One was tall and thin and the other was short and thin, while both wore plain, skimp, black gowns and had their hair parted in the center and smoothed down flatly over their ears. They were silent with some vexed and weighty problem as they drew near, but, as they came just opposite to him, the taller of the two suddenly burst out with:
“Men, men, men! Nothing but men, morning, noon and night. Please explain, Sister Ann! Where did Adnah, during my brief absence, get her sudden curiosity about the despicable sex?”
“It was the recent visit of Doctor Laura Phelps, Sister Sarah,” meekly replied the smaller woman. “She lost a magazine while here and Adnah found it. The publication contained several love stories, so-called, an illustrated article on ‘Young Captains of Industry’ and another on ‘Handsome Young Men of the Stage.’ I burned the pernicious thing as soon as it came into my hands, but, alas, the damage had been done!”
“Damage, indeed, Sister Ann!” snapped the other. “Since the age of five, poor Sister Jane’s orphan has never been permitted to see a man. Big country girls have even been hired to do our farm work. And this, this is the end of fourteen years of self-sacrificing care!”
The young man in the pool cautiously ducked his head under the water. A mosquito had settled back of his ear and was driving him mad.
“Dreadful!” moaned Sister Ann. “Adnah goes about sighing all the day, and looks over-long in the mirror, and takes unseemly pains with her dressing, and does up her hair with flowers, and has feverishly pink cheeks, and likes to sit in a corner and brood, and takes long walks by herself, and especially, especially, seems fond of moonlight!”
A snake slid down off the bushes into the water near the young man and he “wanted out,” but he stayed.
“Moonlight!” sniffed Sarah. “Moonlight!” There is no language to express the disdain with which she spoke this word of philandering and frivolity.
“Moonlight is very pretty,” ventured the other. “I rather like it myself.”
“At your time of life!” retorted Sister Sarah. “You are too sentimental, Sister Ann, as well as too careless.”
Thank Heaven they were going! The young man waited until their voices died in the distance, then crept cautiously to the bank. He had to find those dogs, and in a hurry. He had just seated himself to put on his shoes for the search, when he again heard the voices of women and once more plunged into the pool, like a monster yellow frog, as he reflected he must seem to the squirrel in the tree.
“But, Aunt Matilda, how do you know?” he heard as he came up under the willows. This new voice, sweet and limpid, belonged to a girl of such striking appearance that the young man was on the point of forgetting his dilemma—until that infernal mosquito settled down back of his ear again!
“My dear Adnah,” said a jerky little voice in answer, “your aunts, remember, were all young once, and considered great beauties in their day.” There was a world of gentle pride in Aunt Matilda’s voice as she said this, and it sounded so well that she said it over again. “Great beauties in their day! In consequence they all had their experiences with men, and know that there is not one to be trusted. Not one, my child, not one! Believe your aunts.”
“It seems impossible, aunty,” declared the soft voice of Adnah. “Why, in that magazine were the pictures of some of the most noble-looking creatures—”
“Tut, tut, child, those are the very worst kind,” hastily interrupted Aunt Matilda. “The more handsome they are, the more dangerous. Since you remain so incredulous, however, I suppose I shall have to tell you what we know about them.”
The young man in the pool felt his circulation stopping. The two women were calmly sitting down on the bank to talk confidences, and from what he knew of the sex they were as likely as not to sit there until doomsday, compelling him to appear before the angel Gabriel without even a shroud. He was conscious of the beginning of a cramp in his left leg and his shoulders were becoming icy. He had to be motionless, too, and that was another hardship. The least movement might betray him, for the women sat quite near, and Adnah was facing him. Thanks to the thickness of his leafy hiding-place she could not see him, but he could see her quite plainly, and she was well worth looking at. She, too, wore a plain, skimp, black dress, and her brown hair was parted in the center and smoothed down over her ears, but there the resemblance to Aunt Matilda and the others ended, for her hair was wavy in spite of the severely straight brushing, and it glinted gold where little flecks of sunlight filtered through the branches of the tall trees to caress it. In the hair, too, was a single red rose, caught into place with a natural grace that it seemed a pity to waste on three spinster aunts and two dogs, and the same note of color was repeated in another rebellious blossom at the throat. The young face was plump and oval, and the cheeks were pink, the brown eyes were wide and sparkling and—Oh, well, the young man in the pool stopped cataloguing her attractions and simply summed her up as a stunningly pretty girl. Then he tried once more to get rid of that maddening mosquito and wished to high Heaven that they would go!
“When our dear mother died we four girls were all quite young,” began Aunt Matilda, pausing primly to smooth down her skirts, and the young man in the watery prison gave up in despair. She was starting out like the old-fashioned story books, which never arrived any place, and never knew how to get back if they did. “Your Aunt Sarah was eighteen years old, your Aunt Ann and myself sixteen, and your poor, deluded mother fourteen. Our father, child, married again within the year, and so you see our acquaintance with the duplicity of men began at a very early age. Of course, we refused to live with a stepmother or to allow her to occupy our own dear mother’s house. Left, then, upon our own responsibilities at so tender a period of our lives, it behooved us to conduct ourselves with the strictest of propriety, and I am most happy to say that we came triumphantly through the ordeal. Naturally, we being great beauties in those days, my child, great beauties, many gay young men fluttered about us, and some of them really made quite favorable impressions upon us. There was one in particular—”
Aunt Matilda paused for a sigh and fixed her eyes in sad reminiscence upon a little clump of ferns that, full of conceit, were waving incessant salutes at their dainty reflections in the water.
“Hang the story of her life!” muttered the miserable youth in the pool. His teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Do go on, aunty!” cried the eager Adnah.
“Well, child, they were all alike. Having insinuated their way into our confidences by agreeable manners and by their really indisputable attractiveness, having aroused the beginnings of tender emotions, what did these young men do, one and all? Why, instead of waiting until the acquaintance had ripened into mutual undying affection and then falling gracefully to their knees with honorable proposals of marriage, they one and all chose what seemed to be favorable moments and strove, by cajolery or stealth or even force, to kiss us. To kiss us!”
“Gracious!” exclaimed Adnah.
There was a moment’s silence. The young man in the pool could feel the goose-flesh pimpling between his shoulder blades.
“After all, though, it might not have been so very dreadful,” finally commented Adnah, after a thoughtful sigh.
“Adnah!” cried the horrified Aunt Matilda. “I am astounded!”
“I can’t help it, aunty,” said Adnah. “I can’t make it seem so terrible, no matter how hard I try. In fact it—it seems to me that it would have been—well—rather nice.”
“Adnah!”
“But, aunty, didn’t it ever seem that way to you, sometimes?”
Aunt Matilda was shocked and silent for a moment, then over her pale cheeks crept a pink flush.
“I’ll not deny,” she presently confessed in a hesitant voice, “that if we had not had each other to rely upon for firmness we might perhaps have been deluded by some of these young scapegraces. They were truly quite appealing at times. There was one in particular—”
Again Aunt Matilda became lost in meditation. The young man in the pool swore softly, even though he perceived the tear that trembled upon the lady’s eyelash. It was impossible to be sympathetic while a leech was fastened to his ankle.
“My mother must have thought the way I do, I am sure,” persisted Adnah. The remark brought Aunt Matilda out of the past with a jerk.
“Your poor mother had the most pitiful experience of all, child,” she replied. “She married. Shortly after you were born, she died, fortunately spared all knowledge of your father’s faithless fickleness. Adnah, he, too, married again! You, Adnah, was too young to protect yourself from a stepmother, but we came to your rescue. Your great uncle, Peter, had just died and left us this fine estate, and here we are, trying to shield you from the wiles of the destroyer, man!”
“Some men must be nice, or so many, many girls would not want them,” commented Adnah, still unconvinced.
“I’ll not deny, dear, that some of them seem quite nice,” admitted the other with a sigh. “There was one in particular—”
The dogs interrupted at this moment with a racing struggle for some red and brown object.
“Now what has Castor got?” cried Adnah, jumping up to give chase in a healthy and delightful burst of speed.
The youth in the pool dismally realized that Castor had his missing sock, a brown lisle affair with a quaint red pattern in it, at a dollar a pair. His teeth were pounding together like castanets, now, so loudly that he feared Aunt Matilda must surely hear them. Adnah presently returned, flushed rosy red by the exercise and more charming than ever.
“I couldn’t catch them,” she panted. “Gracious, but I am warm! There is plenty of time for a plunge before dinner. Just wait, Aunt Mattie, until I run for the bathing suits,” and she flashed away again.
Great Cæsar’s ghost! The hidden youth grew so warm with apprehension that the goose-flesh disappeared and the chattering of his teeth stopped. His dilemma was unspeakable and unsolvable, seemingly, but suddenly it was solved for him. The dogs came back!
The sock had been shredded and they sought fresh diversion. After a cordially barked invitation for the young man to come out and play, they went in after him. There was a tremendous splashing struggle. Suddenly the willows were pulled down by a muscular bare arm, and the face of a young man appeared above it to the astounded gaze of Aunt Matilda.
“Excuse me, madam,” he began, lunging viciously at Castor and Pollux with his feet. “Please call off your dogs.”
Aunt Matilda, pale but determined, whipped an antiquated monster of a pistol from her pocket, though she held it far off from her and to one side, with no intention, past, present or future, of ever firing it. It got its effectiveness from size alone, and was built for pure moral suasion if ever a pistol was.
“Hold perfectly still or I shall shoot,” she quaveringly warned him. “You are a male trespasser, sir!”
“I sincerely regret it, madam,” replied the culprit, slapping viciously at the mosquito behind his ear. He got it that time.
“You probably will,” freezingly retorted Aunt Matilda. “I shall telephone for the sheriff immediately, and if you are still here when he arrives you shall receive the full penalty of the law.”
The young man did some quick thinking. It was necessary.
“Madam, your dogs have stolen my clothing and my money, and I can not leave until I get them back,” he presently declared with lucky inspiration. “If you have me arrested for trespass I shall bring suit for the recovery of property.”
Aunt Matilda was sufficiently perplexed to lower her pistol and allow him to explain, while she coaxed the dogs out of the water. He was a splendid talker, and had fine, honest-looking blue eyes.
There was a rush of swift footsteps among the trees.
“Hide!” she commanded in sudden panic.
He promptly hid, and when Adnah arrived with the bathing suits, that young lady found her aunt calmly seated on the ground, holding Castor and Pollux each by a dripping collar.
“Leave my suit and return to the house at once with these dogs,” directed Aunt Matilda without turning her head.
“Why, Aunt Mattie, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing!” snapped Aunt Matilda in desperation. “Go back to the house and stay until I come. Ask no questions.”
Adnah searched the scene in mystification for a moment.
“Yes, aunty,” she suddenly said, and walked away in a flutter of excitement. She had caught the gleam of a bright eye peering at her from among the willows!
She burst into a spontaneous rhapsody of song as she went, trilling and warbling in sweet, untaught cadences, unconsciously like a bird singing to its mate in the springtime. She had a wonderful voice. The young man was sorry when she was out of hearing, but glad, too, for the water was beginning to pucker his cuticle in hard ridges like a wash-board.
“Now, young man,” said Aunt Matilda, “I shall leave this bathing suit here for your use. I shall expect you to put it on and retire from the premises as quickly as possible.”
“I must remain until nightfall,” was the firm reply. “I must find my money and clothes. I should feel ridiculous to be seen in such clothing as that. You, yourself, would scarcely care to have me seen emerging from your premises, on Sunday especially, in such outlandish garments.”
That last argument told. Aunt Matilda visibly weakened.
“Very well, then,” she grudgingly agreed, “but at dusk—Mercy, young man, how your teeth do chatter! Are you getting a chill? I’ll bring you a bowl of boneset tea and some dinner right away!” and she hurried off in much concern.
The young man lost no time in getting into that bathing suit, for the chill of the water was upon him. The suit consisted merely of a pair of blue bloomers that came just below his knees, and a blue blouse that split down the back and at the armpits the moment he buttoned it in front; still he was very grateful for it—grateful for the warm glow that began to pervade him the moment he had donned it. He put on his one sock and his shoes, his hat, collar, tie and cuffs to keep the dogs from getting them, and was quite comfortable when Aunt Matilda came bustling back with a bowl of steaming tea and a tray loaded with good things to eat.
She sat by admiring his appetite until he had finished, then she made him drink the boneset tea to the last drop. He talked admirably all through the “dinner,” and it was with a sigh of almost regret that she started away with the empty dishes. She came back presently.
“You will find our summer cottage up in that direction,” she pointed out. “We shall expect you to—to keep out of range during the day, but to report at the kitchen door at dusk, when you will be escorted to the road.”
“I shall follow your instructions to the letter,” he assured her, and she again slowly walked away. To save her, the man-hater could not think of another reasonable excuse for prolonging the interview. He was a most gentlemanly young man, and he had splendid eyes!
The male trespasser spent the next hour in hunting clothes and anathematizing dogs. His finds were confined strictly to rags and pairless arms and sleeves, and finally he gave up, with everything accounted for but worthless. Discovering a high, grassy plot near the creek, screened from the woods by a thick copse of hazel bushes, he lay down to think matters over and promptly fell asleep.
* * * *
Perhaps half an hour later he slowly opened his eyes with the feeling that he was being compelled to awaken, and found Adnah seated quietly beside him, keeping the mosquitoes away from him with a gracefully waved hazel branch.
“Just sleep right on,” she gently urged. “I often sleep for hours on hot afternoons in this very place.”
“How did you come here?” he demanded, sitting up, startled.
“I hunted you,” she confessed with a delighted little laugh. “I’m so glad you’re awake at last and don’t want to sleep any more. I felt just sure that your eyes were blue. And they are!”
Her delight at this fact was so obvious that he felt uneasy.
“You see, I listened outside the window while Aunt Mattie told Aunts Ann and Sarah all about you,” she confidingly went on. “Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ann were for telephoning for the sheriff anyhow, but Aunt Mattie wouldn’t let them. She likes you. So do I.”
“Oh!” said the astonished young man. For the first time in his life conversation had failed him.
“Of course,” said the girl simply. “Well, I waited until they all lay down for their after-dinner naps, and climbed out of my window so as not to disturb them. They do enjoy their naps so much, you know. I didn’t find you at the pool but I just hunted until I did find you. I’ve been sitting here a long time watching you. You look so nice when you are asleep.”
Now what should he say? With any ordinary girl he could have found the answer, but this one had him floored.
“But you look ever so much nicer when you are awake,” she further informed him, with a clear-eyed straightforwardness that was worse than disconcerting. In desperation he answered, with her own frankness, that she was nice looking herself. He meant it, too.
“I’m so glad you think so,” she contentedly sighed. “I just knew we should like each other as soon as I saw you lying there asleep.”
It was he who blushed, not the girl.
She partly raised up to recapture her hazel branch, and when she sat down again her shoulder remained lightly touching his arm. An electric thrill ran through him and tingled out at his fingertips, but he never moved a muscle. She looked up at him in peaceful happiness and he somehow felt very mean and unworthy. Her eyes made him uncomfortable. The whole trouble was that she was so honest—had never been taught to conceal her thoughts by the thousand and one spoken and unspoken lies of ordinary social intercourse. She was neither timid nor bold, but merely natural, with never a suspicion that conventionality demanded a man and a maid to leave a mutual liking unconfessed. It was rather rough on the young man. He was not used to having the truth fly around in such reckless fashion in his conversations with girls, and it bothered him.
“I’m not a bit afraid of you,” she presently told him. “I knew all the time that Aunt Mattie was wrong. She told me that all men were dreadful, and that the first thing they did was to—to kiss a girl they liked.”
“She knows nothing about it,” he replied rather crossly. For some unaccountable reason he was angry with himself and with her.
“Indeed, she doesn’t,” she agreed, eying him thoughtfully. Presently she added: “I do not believe, though, that I should have minded it so much if she had been right.”
Shade of Plato! He looked down at the tempting curve of her red lips. They were round and full and soft as the petals of a half-blown rosebud, warm and tender and sweet, with just the least trace of puckering to indicate how they could meet the pressure of other lips. He felt his heart come pounding up into the region of his Adam’s apple, and he trembled as he had not done since his first attack of puppy love at the age of fourteen. His breath came and went with a painful flutter but he made no movement. If it had been any sort of a girl under the sun, especially if so attractive as this one, she would have been kissed until she gasped for breath; but he just couldn’t do it. However, if she went so far as to ask him to kiss her, by George! he didn’t see how he was to get out of it!
“I should really like to kiss you,” he admitted with a martyr-like sigh and a further echo of her own frankness, “but I shan’t. Under the circumstances it would not be right.”
He reflected, grinning, that mother would be proud if she could see him now, then he thought, grinning harder, of the boys at the club. Ifthey only knew!
“There, didn’t I say so!” she triumphantly exclaimed. “I told Aunt Matilda that there certainly must be some good men in the world!”
Good! He winced as certain memories of his careless youth began to do cake-walks up and down his conscience. Then he changed the subject.
She snuggled up closely to him, by and by, confidingly and unsuspicious, and just talked and talked and talked. It was very pleasant to have her there at his side, babbling innocently away in that sweet, musical voice. How pretty she was, how artless and trusting, how honest and how heart-whole! It came to him that his family and friends had for a long time been telling him that he ought to get married, and he began to see that they were right.
How delightful it would be to stay on forever in this enchanted grove with her. He presently found himself fervently saying it, though he had not intended such words to pass his lips. She took the wish as a matter of course. She had confidently expected him to feel that way about it, and, if he felt that way, to say so.
“Adnah Eggleson!”
They jumped like juvenile jam-thieves caught red-handed.
Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ann and Aunt Matilda rigidly confronted them, having stolen upon them unseen, unheard, unthought of, and they stood now in grim horror, merciless and implacable. They advanced in a swooping body, after one moment of agonizing suspense, and snatched Adnah into their midst, glaring three kinds of loathing scorn upon the interloping serpent.
“Has this person kissed you, or attempted to do so?” hissed Aunt Sarah.
“Not yet,” meekly answered poor Adnah.
“I assure you ladies—,” began the serpent, but Aunt Sarah cut him short.
“Silence, sir!” she commanded. “We wish no explanations from you, whatsoever.”
Thus crushing him, the little company wheeled and marched away, bearing Adnah an unwilling and impenitent captive, two of them ingeniously keeping behind her so that she should have no opportunity of even exchanging a backward glance with the serpent.
Left to himself the serpent moodily kicked holes in the turf. He had an intense desire to do something violent—to smash something, no matter what. He was furious with the trio of aunts. It was a shame, he told himself, to bury alive a beautiful and noble young woman like that, through a warped and mistaken notion of the world. What right had they to condemn a sweet and affectionate creature such as she to a starved and morbid spinsterhood? It was his duty to rescue her from the colorless fate that hung over her, and he would do his duty. He was unconsciously flexing his biceps as he said it.
Would he? How? Should he get out a search warrant or a writ of replevin? This whimsical view of the case only exasperated him the more as it presented the utter hopelessness of approaching her—of ever seeing her again—and, when the dogs came chasing an utterly inconsequential and useless butterfly in his direction, he pelted them with stones until they yelped. Hang the dogs, anyhow. It was all their fault!
Next he blamed himself. If he had only resisted that creek like a man he wouldn’t have been a hundred miles from home without clothes or money, and silly about a girl he had never seen until that day.
Then he blamed the girl. Why, why was she such a confiding and altogether artless and bewitching little fool? She wasn’t! He remembered her eyes and abjectly apologized to the memory of her. She was everything that was sweet and pure and womanly—everything that was desirable in every sense—well-bred, well-schooled, unspoiled of the world, without guile or subterfuge, beautiful, healthy, honest. That had been the only startling thing about her—just honesty. It spoke ill for himself and the world in which he lived that this should have seemed startling! What a wonderful creature she was! By the Eternal, she belonged to him and he meant to have her! She loved him, too!
He sat down on the bank to think over this phase of the question. He had known her several years in the minute and a half since noon, and it was time this foolishness came to an end.
Time flies when youth listens to the fancied strains of Mendelssohn’s Spring Song. He was surprised, presently, to note a strange hush settling down over the woods. A chill vapor seemed to arise from the water. There was a melancholy note in the tweet of the low-flitting birds. The rustling trees softened their murmur to a continuous whisper, soothing and caressing. The tinkle of the creek became more metallic and pronounced. Near by, down the stream, a sudden chorus of frogs burst into croaking, their isolated notes blended by the chirping undertone of the crickets and tree toads. There were other sounds, mysterious, untraceable, but all musical in greater or lesser degree.
He understood at last. These sounds, the rustling leaves, the flitting birds, the tinkling creek, the frogs, tree toads and crickets and those other intangible cadences, these were the instruments of nature’s vast orchestra, playing their lullaby, languorous and sweet, for the drowsy day. It was dusk, and he was desperately in love with Adnah, and he had on a fool bloomer bath suit and no money, and he had to go back into civilization just as he was. Woe, woe, woe and anathema!
At the house he found a table set under a big oak tree back of the kitchen. Supper for one was illumined by the rays of a solitary lantern. Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ann, each with a pistol in her lap, sat grimly to one side. Adnah nor Aunt Matilda were anywhere to be seen, and he divined with a thrill that Aunt Matilda was acting as jailer to the young woman until he should be safely off the premises. Evidently she had been hard to manage. Bless the little girl!
He took off his hat as he approached and bowed respectfully.
“I should like you to know who I am,” he began.
“You will please to eat your supper without conversation,” Aunt Sarah sternly interrupted.
“I wish to pay my addresses to your niece,” he protested, but the two ladies, finding rudeness necessary, clasped their hands to their ears.
“Kindly eat,” said Aunt Sarah, without removing her hands.
He sat down and glared at the food in despair. He thought he heard Adnah’s voice and the sounds of a scuffle in the house, and it gave him inspiration. He arose, and, leaning his hands on the edge of the table, shouted as loudly as he could:
“I am John Melton, of Philadelphia. I will give you as many references as you like. I wish your permission to write to your niece and, later on, to call upon her. May I do so?”
“Are you going to eat your supper?” inquired Aunt Sarah.
He gave up. He could not, as a gentleman, take Aunt Sarah’s hands from her ears and make her listen to what he had to say. He turned sadly away from the table. The armed escort also arose.
“Please lead the way,” requested Aunt Sarah. “The path leads directly from the front of the cottage to the road.”
He had stalked, in dismal silence, almost half way down the winding avenue of trees, moodily watching the gigantic shadows of his limbs leaping jerkily among the shrubbery, when it occurred to him that the women could scarcely carry the lantern and pistols and still hold their ears.
“I am John Melton, of Philadelphia,” he shouted, and looked back to address them more directly. Alas, the pistols reposed in the pockets of the two prim aprons, the lantern smoked askew at Aunt Sarah’s waist, and both women were holding their hands to their ears!
He could not know that they had been whispering about him, however, and really, for man-haters, their remarks had been very complimentary. Not even that ridiculous costume could hide his athletic figure, his good carriage and pleasant address.
They were nearing the road when they heard a woman’s voice shrieking for them to wait, and presently Aunt Matilda came running after them, breathless and excited.
“You must come back to the house at once, all of you,” she panted. “Adnah is wildly hysterical. She insists that she must have this young man, monster or no monster—that she will die without him. I truly believe that she would!”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Aunt Sarah. “Come on, then!”
It was Aunt Sarah who swiftly and anxiously led the way. At the door of the parlor she paused and confronted the young man.
“Remember,” she warned, “that however impulsive our poor, misguided niece may appear, you must not kiss her!”
Without waiting for reply she opened the door for him. Adnah, smiling happily through the last of her tears, sprang to meet him, and, seizing his hand, drew him down on the couch beside her.
“I’m going to keep you here always, now,” she declared with pretty authority, as she locked her arm in his and interlaced their fingers.
He looked around at the aunts and suddenly longed for his own clothes. They had drawn their chairs in a close semi-circle about the couch and were helplessly staring. He felt the hot blood burning in his cheeks, on his temples, down the back of his neck.
“You will stay, won’t you?” Adnah anxiously asked him.
“I think I shall take you with me, instead,” he replied, smiling down at her in an attempt to conquer his embarrassment.
Adnah rapturously sighed. The spectators suddenly arose, retiring to the far corner of the room, where they held an excited, whispered consultation. Presently they came back and sat down in the same solemn half-circle. Aunt Sarah ceremoniously cleared her throat.
“You will please to unclasp your hands and sit farther apart,” she directed. This obeyed, she proceeded: “Now, Mr. Nelson—”
“Melton, if you please,” corrected the young man, producing a business card that he had rescued.
“Oh!” exclaimed the aunts, exchanging wondering glances.
“We understood that it was Nelson,” murmured Aunt Matilda. It seemed that the hands had not been so tightly clasped over the ears as he had thought.
Aunt Sarah gravely adjusted her glasses.
“’John Melton, Jr.,’” she read. “’Representing Melton and Melton, Administrators and Real Estate Dealers. General John A. Melton. John Melton, Jr.’”
There was a suppressed flutter of excitement and again the three aunts exchanged surprised glances.
“I think I may safely say, may I not, Sisters Ann and Matilda, that this quite alters the case?” was Aunt Sarah’s strange query.
“Quite so, indeed,” agreed Aunt Matilda, complacently smoothing her apron.
“Very much so,” added Aunt Ann.
“Decidedly,” resumed Aunt Sarah. “Your father, young man, handled the estate of our deceased Uncle Peter in a most upright and satisfactory fashion—for a man. So far, much is in your favor, since our unfortunate niece will not be contented without some sort of a husband. Your personal qualifications have yet to be proved, however. We presume that you can offer documentary evidence as to your own worth, sir?”
“Not for a day or so, unfortunately,” confessed the young man. “The dogs destroyed all my papers. The only thing I could find was a portion of a brief note from my mother.”
The three aunts, as by one electric impulse, bent forward with shining eyes.
“From your mother!” hungrily repeated Aunt Sarah. “Let us see it, if you will, please.”
He produced it reluctantly. It was not exactly the sort of letter a young man cares to parade.
“’My beloved son,’” Aunt Sarah read aloud, pausing to bestow a softened glance upon him. “’I can not wait for your return to say how proud I am of you. Your noble and generous action in regard to the aged widow Crane’s property has just come to my ears, through a laughing complaint of your father about your unbusinesslike methods in dealing with those who have been unfortunate. In spite of his whimsically expressed disapproval, he feels that you are an honor to him. Your sister Nellie cried in her pride and love of you when she heard—’”
The rest of the letter had been lost, but this was enough.
Adnah had gradually hitched closer to him, and now her hand, unreproved, stole affectionately to his shoulder. Aunt Matilda was wiping her eyes. Aunt Ann openly sniffled. Aunt Sarah cleared her throat most violently.
“Your references are all that we could wish, young man,” she presently admitted in a businesslike tone. “We shall waive, in your favor, our objections to men in general. If we must have one in the family we are to be congratulated upon having one whose mother is proud of him.”
Coming from Aunt Sarah this was a marvelous concession. The young man bowed his head in pleased acknowledgment and, by and by, crossed his legs in comfort as a home-like feeling began to settle down upon him. Suddenly observing their bloomered exposure, however, he tried to poke his legs under the couch, and twiddled his thumbs instead.
“And when do our young people expect to be married?” meek Sister Ann presently ventured to inquire.
“As quickly as possible,” promptly answered the young man, smiling triumphantly down at the girl by his side. He was astonished, and rather pleased, too, to find her suddenly embarrassed and blushing prettily.
“I believe, then,” announced Aunt Sarah, after due deliberation, “that you may now kiss our niece; may he not, Sisters Ann and Matilda?”
“He may!” eagerly assented the others.
“Very well, then, proceed,” commanded Aunt Sarah, folding her arms.
The young man hastily braced himself to meet this new shock, then gazed down at the girl again. She was still blushing in her newly-found self-conscious femininity, but she trustingly held up her pretty lips to him, looking full into his eyes with the steady flame of her love burning unveiled—and he kissed her.
“Ah-h-h-h!” sighed the three man-hating spinsters in ecstatic unison.
