Part 17

To the competent twenties, hundreds of miles suggesting no impossibilities, such departures may be rending but not tragic. Implacable, the difference to Seventeen! Miss Pratt was going home, and Seventeen could not follow; it could only mourn upon the lonely shore, tracing little angelic footprints left in the sand. To Seventeen such a departure is final; it is a vanishing.

And now it seemed possible that William might be deprived even of the last romantic consolations: of the “last waltz together,” of the last, last “listening to music in the moonlight together”; of all those sacred lasts of the “last evening together.” And this was a thought that turned him cold on the hot day: it was unbearable.

He had pleaded strongly for a “dress-suit” as a fitting recognition of his seventeenth birthday anniversary, but he had been denied by his father with a jocularity more crushing than rigor. Since then--in particular since the arrival of Miss Pratt--Mr. Baxter’s temper had been growing steadily more and more even. That is, as affected by William’s social activities, it was uniformly bad. Nevertheless, after heavy brooding, William decided to make one final appeal before he resorted to measures which the necessities of despair had brought to his mind.

He wished to give himself every chance for a good effect; therefore he did not act hastily, but went over what he intended to say, rehearsing it with a few appropriate gestures, and even taking some pleasure in the pathetic dignity of this performance, as revealed by occasional glances at the mirror of his dressing-table. But in spite of these little alleviations, his trouble was great and all too real, for, unhappily, the previous rehearsal of an emotional scene does not prove the emotion insincere.

Descending, he found his father and mother still sitting upon the front porch. Then, standing before them, solemn-eyed, he uttered a preluding cough, and began:

“Father,” he said, in a loud voice, “I have come to--”

“Dear me!” Mrs. Baxter exclaimed, not perceiving that she was interrupting an intended oration. “Willie, you _do_ look pale! Sit down, poor child; you oughtn’t to walk so much in this heat.”

“Father,” William repeated. “Fath--”

“I suppose you got her safely home from church,” Mr. Baxter said. “She might have been carried off by highwaymen if you three boys hadn’t been along to take care of her!”

But William persisted heroically. “Father--” he said. “Father, I have come to--”

“What on earth’s the matter with you?” Mr. Baxter ceased to fan himself, Mrs. Baxter stopped rocking, and both stared, for it had dawned upon them that something unusual was beginning to take place.

William backed to the start and tried it again. “Father, I have come to--” He paused and gulped, evidently expecting to be interrupted, but both of his parents remained silent, regarding him with puzzled surprise. “Father,” he began once more, “I have come--I have come to--to place before you something I think it’s your duty as my father to undertake, and I have thought over this step before laying it before you.”

“My soul!” said Mr. Baxter under his breath. “My soul!”

“At my age,” William continued, swallowing, and fixing his earnest eyes upon the roof of the porch to avoid the disconcerting stare of his father, “at my age there’s some things that ought to be done and some things that ought not to be done. If you asked me what I thought _ought_ to be done, there is only one answer: When anybody as old as I am has to go out among other young men his own age that already got one, like anyway half of them _have_, who I go with, and their fathers have already taken such a step, because they felt it was the only right thing to do, because at my age and the young men I go with’s age it _is_ the only right thing to do because that is something nobody could deny, at my age--” Here William drew a long breath, and, deciding to abandon that sentence as irrevocably tangled, began another: “I have thought over this step, because there comes a time to every young man when they must lay a step before their father before something happens that they would be sorry for. I have thought this undertaking over, and I am certain it would be your honest duty--”

“My soul!” gasped Mr. Baxter. “I thought I knew you pretty well, but you talk like a stranger to me! What _is_ all this? What you _want_?”

“A dress-suit!” said William. He had intended to say a great deal more before coming to the point, but though through nervousness he had lost some threads of his rehearsed plea, it seemed to him he was getting along well, and putting his case with some distinction and power. He was surprised and hurt, therefore, to hear his father utter a wordless shout in a tone of wondering derision.

“I have more to say--” William began.

But, disregarding this, Mr. Baxter cut him off. “A dress-suit!” he cried. “Well, I’m glad you were talking about _something_, because I honestly thought it must be too much sun!”

At this, the troubled William brought his eyes down from the porch roof and forgot his rehearsal. He lifted his hand appealingly. “Father,” he said, “I _got_ to have one!”

“Got to!” Mr. Baxter laughed a laugh that chilled the supplicant through and through. “At your age I thought I was lucky if I had _any_ suit that was fit to be seen in. You’re too young, Willie. I don’t want you to get your mind on such stuff, and if I have my way, you won’t have a dress-suit for four years more, anyhow.”

“Father, I _got_ to have one. I got to have one right away!” The urgency in William’s voice was almost tearful. “I don’t ask you to have it made, or to go to expensive tailors, but there’s a plenty of good ready-made ones that only cost about forty dollars; they’re advertised in the paper. Father, wouldn’t you spent just forty dollars? I’ll pay it back when I’m in business. I’ll work--”

Mr. Baxter waved all this aside. “It’s not the money. It’s the principle that I’m standing for, and I don’t intend--”

“Father, _won’t_ you do it?”

“No, I will not!”

* * * * *

William saw that sentence had been passed and all appeals for a new trial denied. He choked, and rushed into the house without more ado.

“Poor boy!” his mother said.

“Poor boy nothing!” fumed Mr. Baxter. “He’s almost lost his mind over that Miss Pratt. Think of his coming out here and starting a regular debating society declamation before his mother and father! Why, I never heard anything like it in my life! I don’t like to hurt his feelings, and I’d give him anything I could afford that would do him any good, but all he wants it for now is to splurge around in at this party before that little yellow-haired girl! I guess he can wear the kind of clothes most of the other boys wear--the kind _I_ wore at parties--and never thought of wearing anything else. What’s the world getting to be like? Seventeen years old and throws a fit because he can’t have a dress-suit!”

Mrs. Baxter looked thoughtful. “But--but suppose he felt he couldn’t go to the dance unless he wore one, poor boy--”

“All the better,” said Mr. Baxter firmly. “Do him good to keep away and get his mind on something else.”

“Of course,” she suggested, with some timidity, “forty dollars isn’t a great deal of money, and a ready-made suit, just to begin with--”

Naturally Mr. Baxter perceived whither she was drifting. “Forty dollars isn’t a thousand,” he interrupted, “but what you want to throw it away for? One reason a boy of seventeen oughtn’t to have evening clothes is the way he behaves with _any_ clothes. Forty dollars! Why, only this summer he sat down on Jane’s open paint-box, twice in one week!”

“Well--Miss Pratt _is_ going away, and the dance will be her last night. I’m afraid it would really hurt him to miss it. I remember once, before we were engaged--that evening before papa took me abroad, and you--”

“It’s no use, mamma,” he said. “We were both over twenty--why, _I_ was six years older than Willie, even then. There’s no comparison at all. I’ll let him order a dress-suit on his twenty-first birthday and not a minute before. I don’t believe in it, and I intend to see that he gets all this stuff out of his system. He’s got to learn some hard sense!”

Mrs. Baxter shook her head doubtfully, but she said no more. Perhaps she regretted a little that she had caused Mr. Baxter’s evening clothes to be so expansively enlarged--for she looked rather regretful. She also looked rather incomprehensible, not to say cryptic, during the long silence which followed, and Mr. Baxter resumed his rocking, unaware of the fixity of gaze which his wife maintained upon him--a thing the most loyal will do sometimes. The incomprehensible look disappeared before long, but the regretful one was renewed in the mother’s eyes whenever she caught glimpses of her son, that day, and at the table, where William’s manner was gentle--even toward his heartless father.

Underneath that gentleness, the harried self of William was no longer debating a desperate resolve, but had fixed upon it, and on the following afternoon Jane chanced to be a witness of some resultant actions. She came to her mother with an account of them.

“Mamma, what you s’pose Willie wants of those two ole market baskets that were down cellar?”

“Why, Jane?”

“Well, he carried ’em in his room, an’ then he saw me lookin’, an’ he said ‘G’way from here!’ an’ shut the door. He looks so funny! What’s he want of those ole baskets, mamma?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he doesn’t even know himself, Jane.”

But William did know, definitely. He had set the baskets upon chairs, and now, with pale determination, he was proceeding to fill them. When his task was completed the two baskets contained, between them:

One heavy-weight winter suit of clothes.

One light-weight summer suit of clothes.

Two pairs of white flannel trousers.

Two Madras negligée shirts.

Two flannel shirts.

Two silk shirts.

Seven soft collars.

Three silk neckties.

One crocheted tie.

Eight pairs of socks.

One pair of patent-leather shoes.

One overcoat.

Some underwear.

One two-foot shelf of books, consisting of several sterling works upon mathematics, in a damaged condition; five of Shakespeare’s plays, expurgated and edited for schools and colleges, and also damaged; a work upon political economy and another upon the science of physics; “Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,” “How to Enter a Drawing-Room and 500 Other Hints,” “Witty Sayings From Here and There,” “Lorna Doone,” “Quentin Durward,” “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” a very old copy of “Moths,” and a small Bible.

William spread handkerchiefs upon the two overbulging cargoes, that their nature might not be disclosed to the curious, and, after listening a moment at his door, took the baskets, one upon each arm, then went quickly down the stairs and out of the house, out of the yard, and into the alley--by which route he had modestly chosen to travel.

... After an absence of about two hours, he returned empty-handed and anxious. “Mother, I want to speak to you,” he said, addressing Mrs. Baxter in a voice which clearly proved the strain of these racking days. “I want to speak to you about something important.”

“Yes, Willie?”

“Please send Jane away. I can’t talk about important things with a child in the room.”

Jane naturally wished to stay, since he was going to say something important. “Mamma, do I _haf_ to go?”

“Just a few minutes, dear.”

Jane walked submissively out of the door, leaving it open behind her. Then, having gone about six feet farther, she halted, and, preserving a breathless silence, consoled herself for her banishment by listening to what was said, hearing it all as satisfactorily as if she had remained in the room. Quiet, thoughtful children, like Jane, avail themselves of these little pleasures oftener than is suspected.

“Mother,” said William, with great intensity, “I want to ask you please to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”

“What for, Willie?”

“Mother, I just ask you to lend me three dollars and sixty cents.”

“But what _for_?”

“Mother, I don’t feel I can discuss it any; I simply ask you: Will you lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”

Mrs. Baxter laughed gently. “I don’t think I could, Willie, but certainly I should want to know what for.”

“Mother, I am going on eighteen years of age, and when I ask for a small sum of money, like three dollars and sixty cents, I think I might be trusted to know how to use it for my own good without having to answer questions like a ch--”

“Why, Willie!” she exclaimed. “You ought to have plenty of money of your own.”

“Of course I ought,” he agreed warmly. “If you’d ask father to give me a regular allow--”

“No, no; I mean you ought to have plenty left out of that old junk and furniture I let you sell, last month. You had nearly nine dollars!”

“That was five weeks ago,” William explained wearily.

“But you certainly must have some of it left. Why, it was _more_ than nine dollars, I believe! I think it was nearer ten. Surely you haven’t--”

“Ye Gods!” cried the goaded William. “A person going on eighteen years old ought to be able to spend nine dollars in five weeks without everybody’s acting like it was a crime! Mother, I ask you the simple question: Will you _please_ lend me three dollars and sixty cents?”

“I don’t think I ought to, dear. I’m sure your father wouldn’t wish me to, unless you’ll tell me what you want it for. In fact, I won’t consider it at all unless you do tell me.”

“You won’t do it?” he quavered.

She shook her head gently. “You see, dear, I’m afraid the reason you don’t tell me is because you know that I wouldn’t give it to you if I knew what you wanted it for.”

And this perfect diagnosis of the case so disheartened him that after a few monosyllabic efforts to continue the conversation with dignity, he gave it up, and left in such a preoccupation with despondency that he passed the surprised Jane, in the hall, without suspecting what she had been doing.

That evening, after dinner, he made to his father an impassioned appeal for three dollars and sixty cents, laying such stress of pathos on his principal argument that if he couldn’t have a dress-suit, at least he ought to be given three dollars and sixty _cents_ (the emphasis is William’s), that Mr. Baxter was moved in the direction of consent--but not far enough. “I’d like to let you have it, Willie,” he said, excusing himself for refusal, “but your mother felt _she_ oughtn’t to do it, unless you’d say what you wanted it for, and I’m sure she wouldn’t like me to do it. I can’t let you have it unless you get her to say she wants me to.”

Thus advised, the unfortunate made another appeal to his mother the next day, and having brought about no relaxation of the situation, again petitioned his father, on the following evening. So it went, the torn and driven William turning from parent to parent; and surely, since the world began, the special sum of three dollars and sixty cents has never been so often mentioned in any one house and in the same space of time as it was in the house of the Baxters during Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of that oppressive week. But on Friday William disappeared after breakfast and did not return to lunch.

Mrs. Baxter was troubled. During the afternoon she glanced often from the open window of the room where she had gone to sew, but the peaceful neighborhood continued to be peaceful, and no sound of the harassed footsteps of William echoed from the pavement. However, she saw Genesis arrive (in his week-day costume) to do some weeding, and Jane immediately skip forth for mingled purposes of observation and conversation.

“What _do_ they say?” thought Mrs. Baxter, observing that both Jane and Genesis were unusually animated. But for once that perplexity was to be dispersed. After an exciting half-hour Jane came flying to her mother, breathless.

“Mamma,” she cried, “I know where Willie is! Genesis told me, ’cause he saw him, an’ he talked to him while he was doin’ it.”

“Doing what? Where?”

“Mamma, listen! What you think Willie’s doin’? I bet you can’t g--”

“Jane!” Mrs. Baxter spoke sharply. “Tell me what Genesis said, at once.”

“Yes’m. Willie’s over in a lumber-yard that Genesis comes by on his way from over on the avynoo where all the colored people live--an’ he’s countin’ knot-holes in shingles.”

“He is _what_?”

“Yes’m. Genesis knows all about it, because he was thinkin’ of doin’ it himself, only he says it would be too slow. This is the way it is, mamma--listen, mamma, because this is just exactly the way it is. Well, this lumber-yard man got into some sort of a fuss because he bought millions an’ millions of shingles, mamma, that had too many knots in, an’ the man don’t want to pay for ’em, or else the store where he bought ’em won’t take ’em back, an’ they got to prove how many shingles are bad shingles, or somep’m, and anyway, mamma, that’s what Willie’s doin’. Every time he comes to a bad shingle, mamma, he puts it somewheres else, or somep’m like that, mamma, an’ every time he’s put a thousand bad shingles in this other place, they give him six cents. He gets the six cents to keep, mamma--an’ that’s what he’s been doin’ all day!”

“Good gracious!”

“Oh, but that’s nothing, mamma--just you wait till you hear the rest. _That_ part of it isn’t anything a _tall_, mamma! You wouldn’t hardly notice that part of it, if you knew the other part of it, mamma. Why, that isn’t _anything_!” Jane made demonstrations of scorn for the insignificant information already imparted.

“Jane!”

“Yes’m?”

“I want to know everything Genesis told you,” said her mother, “and I want you to tell it as quickly as you can.”

“Well, I _am_ tellin’ it, mamma!” Jane protested. “I’m just _beginning_ to tell it. I can’t tell it unless there’s a beginning, can I? How could there be _anything_ unless you had to begin it, mamma?”

“Try your best to go on, Jane!”

“Yes’m. Well, Genesis says--Mamma!” Jane interrupted herself with a little outcry. “Oh! I bet _that’s_ what he had those two market baskets for! Yes, sir! That’s just what he did! An’ then he needed the rest o’ the money and you an’ papa wouldn’t give him any, and so he began countin’ shingles to-day ’cause to-night’s the night of the party an’ he just _hass_ to have it!”

Mrs. Baxter, who had risen to her feet, recalled the episode of the baskets and sank into a chair. “How did Genesis know Willie wanted forty dollars, and if Willie’s pawned something how did Genesis know _that_? Did Willie tell Gen--”

“Oh, no, mamma, Willie didn’t want forty dollars--only fourteen!”

“But he couldn’t get even the cheapest ready-made dress-suit for fourteen dollars.”

“Mamma, you’re gettin’ it all mixed up!” Jane cried. “Listen, mamma! Genesis knows all about a second-hand store over on the avynoo; an’ it keeps ’most everything, an’ Genesis says it’s the nicest store! It keeps waiter suits all the way up to nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents. Well, an’ Genesis wants to get one of those suits, so he goes in there all the time an’ talks to the man an’ bargains an’ bargains with him, ’cause Genesis says this man is the bargainest man in the wide worl’, mamma! That’s what Genesis says. Well, an’ so this man’s name is One-eye Beljus, mamma. That’s his name, an’ Genesis says so. Well, an’ so this man that Genesis told me about that keeps the store--I mean One-eye Beljus, mamma--well, One-eye Beljus had Willie’s name written down in a book, an’ he knew Genesis worked for fam’lies that have boys like Willie in ’em, an’ this morning One-eye Beljus showed Genesis Willie’s name written down in his book, an’ One-eye Beljus asked Genesis if he knew anybody by that name an’ all about him. Well, an’ so at first Genesis pretended he was tryin’ to remember, because he wanted to find out what Willie went there for. Genesis didn’t tell any stories, mamma; he just pretended he couldn’t remember, an’ so, well, One-eye Beljus kept talkin’ an’ pretty soon Genesis found out all about it. One-eye Beljus said Willie came in there and tried on the coat of one of those waiter suits--”

“Oh, no!” gasped Mrs. Baxter.

“Yes’m, an’ One-eye Beljus said it was the only one that would fit Willie, an’ One-eye Beljus told Willie that suit was worth fourteen dollars, an’ Willie said he didn’t have any money, but he’d like to trade something else for it. Well, an’ so One-eye Beljus said this was an awful fine suit an’ the only one he had that had b’longed to a white gentleman. Well, an’ so they bargained, an’ bargained, an’ bargained, an’ _bargained_! An’ then, well, an’ so at last Willie said he’d go an’ get everything that b’longed to him, an’ One-eye Beljus could pick out enough to make fourteen dollars’ worth, an’ then Willie could have the suit. Well, an’ so Willie came home an’ put everything he had that b’longed to him into those two baskets, mamma--that’s just what he did, ’cause Genesis says he told One-eye Beljus it was everything that b’longed to him, an’ that would take two baskets, mamma. Well then, an’ so he told One-eye Beljus to pick out fourteen dollars’ worth, an’ One-eye Beljus ast Willie if he didn’t have a watch. Well, Willie took out his watch, an’ One-eye Beljus said it was an awful bad watch but he would put it in for a dollar; an’ he said, ‘I’ll put your necktie pin in for forty cents more,’ so Willie took it out of his necktie; an’ then One-eye Beljus said it would take all the things in the baskets to make I forget how much, mamma, and the watch would be a dollar more, an’ the pin forty cents, an’ that would leave just three dollars and sixty cents more for Willie to pay before he could get the suit.”

Mrs. Baxter’s face had become suffused with high color, but she wished to know all that Genesis had said, and, mastering her feelings with an effort, she told Jane to proceed--a command obeyed after Jane had taken several long breaths.

“Well, an’ so the worst part of it is, Genesis says, it’s because that suit is haunted.”

“What!”

“Yes’m,” said Jane solemnly; “Genesis says it’s haunted. Genesis says everybody over on the avynoo knows all about that suit, an’ he says that’s why One-eye Beljus never could sell it before. Genesis says One-eye Beljus tried to sell it to a colored man for three dollars, but the man said he wouldn’t put it on for three hunderd dollars, an’ Genesis says he wouldn’t either, because it belonged to a Dago waiter that--that--” Jane’s voice sank to a whisper of unctuous horror: she was having a wonderful time! “Mamma, this Dago waiter, he lived over on the avynoo, an’ he took a case-knife he’d sharpened--_an’ he cut a lady’s head off with it_!”

Mrs. Baxter screamed faintly.