CHAPTER XIV

THE PARABLE OF THE COCOANUT PIE

There was fluttering anticipation among the relatives as they gathered in the breakfast room the next morning and dallied with broiled kidneys and anchovy toast while awaiting Baxter's summons. Which came presently when Hiram, red-faced and genial of visage, opened the door.

"If you folks don't mind," he said, "I wish you'd join me in the library for a little friendly talk."

At last the great moment had come, and, one by one, the relatives passed through the hall into the room beyond, each showing in face and manner an overbubbling delight at the thought of the benefits they expected to receive from Cousin Hiram. And, one by one, they seated themselves in the stiff, high-backed chairs that were ranged along the wall. Baxter settled himself on the corner of the davenport and faced them. His eyes were cheerful, his smile was cordial; there was not the least indication of what was coming.

"Make yourselves comfortable, friends," began Hiram. "I've got a few things to say, and ye might as well take it easy."

There was a shifting of positions, a little expectant coughing, and then, just as Baxter was about to begin, Harriet Merle prodded Horatio, who was staring absentmindedly before him.

"Horatio!" she whispered.

The curate came to himself with a start, blinked rapidly behind his glasses, and then, remembering the duty his wife had put upon him, rose solemnly to his feet and, in his most clerical manner, addressed Hiram Baxter.

"Ahem! Mr. Baxter! In the name of the relatives gathered here, allow me to extend to you our most cordial welcome on this occasion of your return to England, together with the expression of our gratitude for your large and unfailing generosity in the past and--er--ahem!"

"Hear, hear!" applauded Lionel.

But Hiram lifted a hand for silence. "One moment, Brother Horatio," he drawled. "Before ye wind up yer speech, ye'd better let me make a few remarks. Ye may want to change yer peroration."

"How delightful!" murmured Harriet.

"Go on, Cousin Hiram," urged Kate.

"Hear, hear!" repeated Lionel.

"Ahem!" coughed the curate and sat down.

"I've called you people in here," continued Baxter, "to tell ye something that I've been thinkin' about fer quite a while. We're goin' to Brighton to-day, Eleanor and me, fer a couple o' weeks--this ghost business has broke Eleanor up a good deal--and I want to get this thing off my chest before I leave. Yer all good friends o' mine and yer all more or less in hard luck. Seems like things naturally go wrong with ye--it's been so fer years, ever since I've had the honor o' belongin' to this family. Well, a man hates to see his wife's relations suffer and I've tried to do what I could, but--I'm here to tell ye now that I don't feel as if I've ever done the right thing by ye. No, sir. All these years I've tried to help ye out of yer troubles, but I've never turned the trick."

"Oh, I say!" protested Lionel.

"You've been splendid," Kate declared.

"We wouldn't have you any different, dear Cousin Hiram," beamed Harriet.

Baxter paused a moment and adjusted his spectacles. "Think I'm a pretty good feller, don't ye? Well, yer wrong. Look at my friend, Fitz-Brown, my wife's second cousin once removed. Up to his ears in debt--always has been. Ain't that a shame! My wife's second cousin once removed!"

The old boy leaned forward earnestly, his big, strong chin on his big, strong hand and in his kindly, homely way addressed the gentleman in question who was pulling fiercely at his yellow mustache.

"Now, friend Lionel, I'm goin' to show ye how ye can always have money enough and never have any more debts or bother."

This roused the monocled one to genuine enthusiasm. "I say, I'll be awfully pleased," he responded.

"I'll do it. And I'm goin' to show you," Hiram Baxter turned sharply to the curate, "how you can cure that tired feelin' and hold a preachin' job for more'n five consecutive minutes."

"Oh, thank you, sir," murmured Horatio.

"And I'm goin' to show you ladies how to be happy. Yes, sir. Trouble with you is yer bored to death. That's why ye want to go kitin' around to Monte Carlo and Jerusalem. I'll fix it so ye can't ever be bored."

"I wish you could," laughed Kate.

"My dear Countess," reproved Harriet, "if Cousin Hiram agrees to do a thing you can depend upon him absolutely."

"It ain't necessary to go into details, but each one of you knows what ye've had from me straight and regular every year for the last five years. It makes quite a total, ten thousand pounds or more, fifty thousand dollars that I've spent tryin' to get you people on yer feet, and I ain't ever been able to do it. Each year yer in worse'n the year before, and it's all my fault. Want to know why? Because I've been tryin' to help ye on the European plan, which ain't worth shucks; but I've had my eyes opened, and now I'm goin' to change and help ye on the good old-fashioned American plan, warranted never to fail."

"Yes?"

"Tell us!"

"Please tell us!"

"Hear, hear!" buzzed the eager chorus.

Then came the first intimation of the truth, slowly and smilingly delivered, but bringing shattering disillusion, nevertheless, to the trusting relatives: "The American plan of helpin' people consists in showin' 'em how they can help themselves."

The effect came gradually in a movement of general surprise and consternation.

"Oh, I say!"

"But----"

"You don't mean--you surely don't mean----"

"Tell ye exactly what I mean. Yer all nice people, but ye've been trained wrong. Your idea is to sit in the sunshine and let somebody shake plums into yer lap, which is all right if ye can find a feller to do it, but I'm tired o' shakin' plums and the tree's pretty well skinned, so----" Here he turned to the countess and Harriet with his most ingratiating smile: "Ladies, I want to ask you a question. Suppose you were on a desert island and were gettin' terribly hungry, and suppose ye looked up and saw some nice, ripe cocoanuts waitin' to be picked. You'd say to yourselves: 'Them cocoanuts look awful good,' and ye'd ring like fury for the butler and the maid to come and pick 'em and make 'em into cocoanut pies. But the butler and the maid wouldn't show up, because yer on a desert island--uninhabited. See? So after a while ye'd get tired o' ringin' and ye'd say to the countess----" here he beamed on Mrs. Merle, "'Countess,' ye'd say, 'it ain't according to Hoyle fer ladies to climb cocoanut trees, but this is a case of hustle or starve, so we'll flip up a cent to see which one of us boosts the other into them branches.'"

"Never," declared the curate's wife, scandalized.

"Yes, ye would!" pursued Hiram. "And before night ye'd be eatin' the finest cocoanut pie ye ever tasted, for----" he paused and then added with his most impressive drawl: "Take it from me, ladies, there ain't no pie in the world like a self-made pie."

This statement was received in silence, in thin-lipped, despairing silence. Slowly but surely the relatives were beginning to get dear Cousin Hiram's idea.

"Ahem! Mr. Baxter!" coughed Horatio, rising again. "In the name of the relatives gathered here, allow me to thank you for the beautiful--shall I say touching--parable of the cocoanut pie. I think, however, that I voice the desire of the relatives gathered here in asking you to make your ideas a little clearer in their--shall I say in their immediate application?"

"All right, Brother Horatio," smiled Hiram, as the curate resumed his seat. "I'll come down to cases. We're members o' the same family and we've got to stand together."

"Ah!" approved Harriet.

"Just now it happens that I need your help. I've got big resources, but I'm in a hard campaign. I've got my back to the wall fighting for my life and--well, we'll come through all right and you'll benefit with me, but for a while we've got to cut down on expenses and--er--you people'll have to--er----"

The bolt was about to fall, the words were on Hiram's lips: "You people'll have to do some work," but as he looked into the faces before him, pathetic, incredulous, the old fellow weakened. "You people'll have to--er--give this thing your--er--serious consideration," he substituted.

But the countess understood, and, with a little laugh and a shrug of her shapely shoulders, she came straight to the point. "You mean we'll have to--have to--work?"

Hiram nodded slowly.

"Understand, there's no hurry about this. I want to treat ye right. I want to help ye. I want to see yer faces bright and yer needs provided for, but I can tell ye this, from a long experience, that the thing in my life that's made me happiest is the honest work I've done. Remember, things go on here in Ipping House just the same, whatever you folks decide. If ye can't think of anything practical to do, why, never mind. I'll stand by ye as well as I can; but if ye could think o' something that yer fitted to do and could put yer heart in, why it would solve your problems and it'd help solve mine. You'll be sore on me for a while, like the kid that sputters and kicks and swallers a quart of water when you chuck him in a pond to learn him to swim."

Harriet's face was a study in horror. "Good heavens, you're not going to----"

"Chuck us in a pond? Eh, what?" gasped Lionel.

"No, no. I mean work is like swimmin'. Ye hate it until ye learn how and then yer crazy about it. Why, you people'll feel just fine when ye've cut out this bluff and fake business. Do ye know what a little useful work'll do? It'll make men and women of ye."

"But what work can we do?" protested the countess.

"Jolly good point, that," echoed Lionel.

Hiram reflected a moment.

"I suppose there are things you folks could do, if ye had to, plenty o' things. Maybe I'm mistaken, maybe it's a crazy idea, but----"

Here suddenly the curate spoke. "I think Mr. Baxter is quite right," he began in a low tone vibrant with feeling.

"Horatio!" glared Mrs. Merle, but the little man faced her calmly.

"My dear, I beg you not to interrupt." Then, turning to the master of the house: "Speaking for myself," he continued, "and not for the relatives gathered here, I wish to say that, in view of your great past kindness, my dear Mr. Baxter, I feel that you are justified, fully justified, in asking us to help you meet the serious and, let us hope, temporary difficulties that beset you. And I would remind the relatives gathered here of King Solomon's beautiful and impressive words: 'Whoso keepeth the fig trees shall eat the fruit thereof, and whoso waiteth on his master shall be honored.'"

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Disapproving as they were, and bitterly disappointed, the relatives, in spite of themselves, were impressed by a certain unsuspected moral strength in this gentle utterance.

"King Solomon cert'ly knew his business," approved Hiram, as much surprised as the others at this turn of affairs.

"And I beg to suggest," proceeded Merle, appealing to the astonished group, "as the least important and the least worthy person here, yet one who has sincerely at heart the welfare of all, I venture to suggest that, before any hasty words are spoken or any irrevocable action is taken by the relatives gathered here, I would suggest, I say, that the relatives withdraw to their rooms or elsewhere for a little--er--thought and--shall I say self-examination?"

"Good idea! Fine idea!" nodded Baxter, and a moment later, with a quizzical look in his cheery blue eyes, he watched the relatives file out silently, one by one, a mighty sore bunch, he reflected, mouths down and noses up, Horatio going last and bowing respectfully to Hiram as he closed the door behind him.

For some moments the old man sat in the corner of the davenport, smiling at this latest development. Who would have thought of it? The Reverend Merle a champion of honest labor! Standin' up like a little bantam rooster against them relatives!

Presently Bob entered, eager for news.

"Well?" inquired the son.

"Bob," drawled the big fellow, "I'll bet ye four dollars and a quarter King Solomon wrote them proverbs o' his after he'd been worked by relatives. Say, with a thousand wives he must have had an everlasting lot of 'em!"

An hour later the luggage cart appeared for the three large boxes, the two steamer trunks and the assortment of Gladstone bags, hold-alls, and dress-suit cases that Eleanor had caused to be packed for their brief and simple sojourn in Brighton. Some of these things, it is true, belonged to Betty, whose services were required by Mr. Baxter, and who now appeared, ready for the journey, a radiant summer vision all in white except for a bunch of pansies at her waist and a graceful, pale-blue plume in the wide-brimmed straw hat that becomingly shaded her eyes.

The car drew up at the door, coughing and sputtering, with Bob Baxter at the wheel. Hiram sat in front beside his son, Eleanor and Betty on the seat behind. And, just as they were starting, Kate Clendennin tripped down the steps and, declining to squeeze in among the bags and bundles, leaped lightly upon the footboard at Bob's side and remained there, despite Eleanor's protest, all the way to the station.

Poor Betty! There was a moment's delay in starting the train, after the guard had given the signal and slammed the doors, and the banished secretary, looking backward through the window, caught a glimpse of the departing motor as it rounded the nasturtium bed. Kate was on the front seat next to Bob, and they both looked back, the countess laughing and waving her hand. Then the car turned a wooded corner, and that was the last picture--Kate and Bob together, close together, gliding swiftly, perhaps slowly, through those leaf-arched lanes and delicious lonesome glades of the forest. They had taken the longer way home, but there was time enough--there was not the slightest need for Kate and Bob to hurry.