Читать книгу The Associate Hermits - Frank Richard Stockton - Страница 7

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At four o’clock on the afternoon of June 6th Mr. and Mrs. Hector Archibald arrived at a family hotel in the capital of their state. Where they should go from there had not been decided upon. Nothing in regard to their wedding-journey had been decided upon except that they were to return to their home on the 6th of July of that year, and not before. It would have been impossible, with their minds filled with bridal arrangements, for them to make plans for their journey. But at this first stopping-place, where they were free from all responsibility and interruptions, they could, at their leisure, decide where they should go, how they should go, and what they should do when they got there.

After the unrest and turmoil of their own home during the past few weeks, the quiet and repose of this city hotel were delightful. That evening they went to the theatre, and after the performance they had a little supper at a restaurant.

“People may not think we are a newly married pair,” said Mr. Archibald, as he poured out a glass of wine for his wife, “but it is not impossible that they may see we know how to enjoy ourselves quite as much as if we were.”

The next morning Mr. Archibald procured a number of railroad maps, time-tables, circulars of steamboat excursions, advertisements of mountain retreats and sea-side resorts, and he and his wife sat down to study these, and to decide upon a destination and a route. After an hour or two of indeterminate examination Mr. Archibald declared himself a little tired, and proposed that they should take a recess from their labors and go and call upon their old friends, the Stanley Dearborns.

“People on wedding-tours do not make calls,” said Mrs. Archibald.

“That may be true,” said her husband, “in ordinary cases, and although I do not care to announce to everybody the peculiarities of the expedition which we have undertaken, I do not mind in the least telling the Stanley Dearborns all about it. Stanley himself would not appreciate it; he would consider it absurd; but then he is not at home at this time of day, and Mrs. Dearborn is just the woman to enjoy a reform movement of this sort. Besides, she is full of ideas about everything, and she may propose some good place for us to go to.”

Mrs. Dearborn was at home, and very glad to see the Archibalds. She was a woman whose soul was in touch with the higher education of women—with female suffrage, the emancipation of the enslaved mind wherever it might be found, and with progress generally. She was a member of many societies, belonged to committees without end, wrote reports and minutes by day and by night, and was one of that ever-increasing class of good people who continually walk forward in order that their weight may help the world to turn over.

In spite of her principles and the advanced position of her thought, Mrs. Dearborn actually leaned back in her chair and laughed heartily when she learned what sort of a journey the Archibalds were taking. In this merriment Mr. Archibald joined with great glee.

“Ever since I left home,” he said, “I have wanted to have a chance for a good laugh at this trip we are taking. It is the most delightful joke I have ever known.”

Mrs. Archibald could not help smiling, but her brow was clouded. “If this expedition is merely a joke,” she said, “I do not think we should have undertaken it; but if it is an earnest assertion of our belief that there should be a change in the customs of society, then I think we should take it seriously, and I see nothing to laugh at.”

“My dear Harriet,” said Mrs. Dearborn, “we can be good and glad at the same time; and that is what I am, I am sure. What you are doing is the initiation of one of the most worthy reforms of the day, and if it should have an effect in breaking up that wretched custom of the bridal tramp, which is considered so necessary in this country, society should rise up and call you blessed. But it is funny, for all that. I am sure that the first woman who dared to go without crinoline was very funny, and when I heard of a hospital for cats I could not help laughing; but I believed in it, and worked for it. And now where are you going?”

“That is what we want to talk to you about,” said Mr. Archibald; and for half an hour they talked about it.

At the end of that time it was decided that the mountains were better than the sea or than a quiet lowland nook; and Mrs. Dearborn strongly recommended Sadler’s, where she and her husband had spent a part of a summer a few years before.

“We camped out,” said she, “and had a fine time. You can camp out at Sadler’s more easily and satisfactorily than anywhere else in the world.”

Camping suited Mr. Archibald admirably, and, to his surprise, his wife said she might like it very well.

“If people are going to laugh at us,” she said, “when they find out we are on a wedding-journey—and they will be sure to find it out in some way or other—I think the fewer people we mingle with the better. I do not think I shall like camping altogether, but I know it is healthful, and I suppose I ought to get used to it. It would be dreadfully lonely for just Mr. Archibald and me, but I suppose we can take some one with us to guide and cook.”

“My dear Harriet,” said Mrs. Dearborn, “if you are at Sadler’s, you can go into any sort of camp you please. I will tell you all about Sadler’s. Sadler is a man of progress. His hotel or inn is on the very edge of the forest country, and away from all the centres of resort. He calls his place the terminal link of public travel in that direction. When you leave him you travel privately in any way you like. He has established what he has named a bureau of camping, and he furnishes his patrons with any sort of a camp they may desire. If the party is few in number and of a timid disposition, they can have a camp within shouting distance of his house. If they are brave and adventurous, he will send them out into the depths of the forest. If they like water, he locates them by the shores of a lake. If climbing is their passion, he puts them at the foot of a mountain. Those who want to hunt can do so, and those who dislike fire-arms are placed in a camp where the popping of guns is never heard. He provides tents, guides, provisions, and even dangers and sensations.”

“Safety is what I want,” interrupted Mrs. Archibald.

“And that he furnishes,” said the other, “for those who desire it.”

“Sadler is the man for me!” cried Mr. Archibald. “We will go to him, look over his list of camps, and select one to suit us.”

“By-the-way,” said Mrs. Dearborn, “a thought has struck me. How would you like to take Margery with you?”

“Margery!” exclaimed Mr. Archibald. “That delightful little girl whom I taught to ride a tricycle when you were visiting us? I would like it ever so much.”

It struck Mrs. Archibald that people on bridal trips did not generally take children or young girls with them, but it also struck her that if they were going into camp it might be pleasant and in many ways advantageous to have some one of her own sex with her; but she had no time to formulate these advantages in her mind before Mrs. Dearborn explained in full.

“Since Mr. Dearborn and I came home from Sadler’s,” she said, “Margery has been perfectly wild to go there, and as soon as the leaves began to bud in the parks she began to talk about it. We saw no possible chance of her going there, for her father is too busy to leave home for any length of time this season, and I cannot go to the mountains this year, for I must visit my sister, who is not well, and there are three summer conventions that I am obliged to attend. But if you could take her with you, I do not believe she would trouble you in the least, and you would give her great pleasure. Moreover, to speak practically, which I think we always ought to do, it would not be a bad thing on the score of economy, for things are always proportionately cheaper for three people in a camp than for two.”

A great many advantages of female companionship now began to creep into Mrs. Archibald’s mind: if her husband should take it into his head to go out and hunt at night by the light of a torch; if there should be thunder-storms, and he away with the guide; if he should want to go off and talk to Indians or trappers, and he always did want to go off and talk to people of every class—it would be very pleasant to have even Margery Dearborn with her. So she consented with great good-will to her friend’s proposition, and Mrs. Dearborn was much pleased and thankful.

“Margery is a true creature of impulse,” she said; “that is really her predominating characteristic, and she will want to bound to the ceiling when she hears she is to go to Sadler’s. She is not at home now, but she will be in very soon. You must take luncheon with us.”

About a quarter of an hour after that Margery Dearborn came home. She was very glad indeed to see the Archibalds, whom she remembered as the kindest of people; and when she heard they were going to take her to Sadler’s, she gave a scream of delight and threw herself upon Mrs. Archibald’s neck.

“You are an angel,” she cried, “an angel of blessedness, my dear Aunt Harriet! Don’t you remember, I used to call you that? Won’t you let me call you so still?” And without waiting for an answer, she rushed to Mr. Archibald, with outstretched hands. “Dear Uncle Archibald, you are just as good as ever, I see. You know, I wouldn’t call you Uncle Hector, because hectoring meant scolding, which never had anything to do with you. Sadler’s! Oh, when do we start?”

“To-morrow is Saturday,” replied Mr. Archibald; “we must get together some things we will need for camp-life, and we can start on Monday.”

When the visitors were left to themselves for a few moments, Mr. Archibald said to his wife, “Harriet, I am astounded. This girl, who used to ride bareback and jump over fences, is a young lady now, and a handsome one, too. She is quite a different person from the girl I agreed to take with us.”

“Mr. Archibald,” said his wife, “you never can remember that in this world people of all ages grow older. She was fourteen when she was visiting us, and that was four years ago, so of course she is a young lady.”

“No,” he answered, “I don’t feel that I am growing any older, and I don’t see that you are, and so I totally forget that proclivity in other people. But what do you think now? Can we take this young woman with us to camp? Will she not be a dreadful drag?”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Archibald, “I much prefer the young lady to the girl. I don’t want to be the only woman in camp, and the nearer the other woman is to my age the better.”

“All right,” said Mr. Archibald; “if you are satisfied, I am; and, if she will agree to it, we will add our ages for the time being, and divide by three, and then we will all stand on a level.”