Maud and Bill

by Booth Tarkington

 

MAUD and BILL

A LUCIUS BRUTUS ALLEN STORY

by
Booth Tarkington

AUTHOR OF “THE TURMOIL,” “PENROD,” “SEVENTEEN.”
ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOMAS FOGARTY.

THE “National House” stands on the eastern side of the Square in Marlow; its morning shadow is a rhomboid of cool, blue dusk thrown far out upon the white street; and here is the summer resort, or springs, for local men of leisure, since the bar is handy upon one side, while upon the other is Milo Carter's drug-store. with its glass-domed soda-fountain hissing icily to allure the passing ear.

Throughout the summer six or seven wooden chairs are to be found upon the sidewalk in front of the hotel, and usually most of these are occupied; but sometimes it it happens that the loungers drift to other parts of the Square, or even to their homes, and only one is left, perhaps drowsing with an open jack-knife in his hand. That is Mortimer Fole.

Mortimer will not be sitting in one of the chairs upon the sidewalk, close to the broad window of the hotel: he establishes his chair in the gutter so that he can tilt back against the telegraph-pole which stands at the edge of the pavement, though when his mood is lively he will face about to join in the conversation of the occupants of the other chairs, and then he places his feet against the telegraph-pole at about the level of the buckle his suspender. Of all the men of leisure in Marlow, Mortimer is the one who has the most; but there is a Mexican War pension in his wife's family, and the public is not inclined to blame him.

As the days grow longer in the spring-time, Mortimer arrives upon the Square a little earlier every morning, because when women are busy about a house with their domestic duties, and all this and that, as Mortimer sometimes explains, a man ought to show them a little consideration and keep out of their way, especially early in the morning. when they provoke easily. Thus Mr. Fole reached the terrase'' of the National House on the twenty-first of last June—that is to say, the longest day in the year—at a little before eight o'clock, ante-meridian.

He gave thoughtful attention tn his selection of a chair, because Mr. Wheen, the proprietor of the hotel, had made some amateur experiments in varnish during the long, dull winter, and and now that the warm weather was come, certain pieces of furniture both within and without the hostelry were apt to detain an occupant longer than he wished. However, Mortimer found a chair which he had previously discovered to be free of this too hospitable failing; dragged it to the gutter, sat, tilted himself back against the telegraph-pole, hooked his heels over the bottom rung of the chair, and, finding nothing in his mind or in the world to keep him awake, went pleasantly to sleep.

Though the usual noises of the town went on about him, his slumber was sweet and deep during more than an hour—even when for ten minutes or so a farmer's saddle-horse, tied to the telegraph-pole, now and then breathed upon his head, and went so far as to extend a tremulous upper lip and tamper softly with the sagging brim of his straw hat. Anon, some fellow-citizen driving an automobile would pass jocosely close to the sleeper and sound murder and sudden death upon a warning horn; and at such times Mortimer would twitch slightly or his hand might fall from his lap and hang, flaccid, at his side. Nevertheless he slept.

What woke him has interest for the student of mysteries. Two beautiful little children, a boy of seven and a girl of five, both charmingly dressed in white and almost sparklingly clean, came gravely walking along Main Street, hand in hand. At the corner they paused, their serious eyes having been arrested by the slumbrous figure against the telegraph-pole; then without consultation, but following an impulse harmoniously shared, they turned, and walking straightway to the telegraph-pole, halted close by and stared in silent fascination at the railroad map of rusty wrinkles upon the back of Mr. Mortimer Fole's neck.

Finally, the little girl detached her hand from her brother's, extended a curling forefinger, and touched the most important of these corrugations, which disturbed Mortimer not at all. Then she examined her finger to see if any of the wrinkle had come off upon it, and, finding that none had, looked puzzled. Meanwhile her brother, leaving her to this investigation, went round in front of the sleep)er and became profoundly interested in his open mouth.

By stooping slightly the boy could see farther into this cavity than he had ever before seen into a similar one, though in truth he had never beheld one very similar; and his sister became aware of tokens of such excitement upon his countenance that she too came, and stooped with him to gain a view of new wonders in the world. Thus they looked long and long upon strange things and all manner of curiosities which, it might be, they would remember at inexplicable times thirty years afterward.

And their escape from a punitive confinement within their own yard at home seemed now by all means justified.

At last the boy found his stooping position irksome, straightened his back, and, wrenching his gaze from the orifice, looked about him for something to place within it. Inevitable that the experimental impulse should be stimulated by such revelations of the marvels of Nature: this is the very seed of human progress. Therefore, his eye falling upon a rusty buckle in the gutter, he decided to ascertain the effect of dropping the buckle into the orifice.

But though the visible Mortimer slept, his subliminal self had flung out guards and pickets on the watch; and here is the mystery: He who had slumbered through the horse's nosings, and through the turbulence of motor warnings, became aware of something within his profundities shrieking, “Wake, Mortimer!” He stirred; his moist eyelids fluttered, and between them he began to glimpse underwater images of the old, red-brick courthouse across the street; doors, windows, roof, and cupola swimming and leaping in whirlpools of yellow sunshine; but, larger than the distorted building, there rose before him an enormous white hand, holding between thumb and forefinger a monstrous instrument of rusty metal. Suddenly he knew himself to be in the presence of danger, and, with a start that brought his chair down upon a level, he woke.

Two serious pink faces were within a foot of his own, but the hand which had threatened him was thoughtfully withdrawn behind its owner's back. Nevertheless Mortimer had identified it and what it held.

“What did you have in mind to do with that halter-buckle. Bill Ricketts?” he demanded. “Goin' to stob my eyes out with it?”

His tone being severe, Bill and his sister took several steps backward, saying nothing, and, in spite of their apprehension, staring at Mortimer with an interest in him never felt before this hour—an interest which would never cease to rise within them thereafter at sight of him, though Mortimer himself was destined to remain in ignorance of what inspired it.

“I know what you were up to!” he said fiercely. “You and Maud were goin' to drop that ole halter-buckle down the inside of my shirt while you thought I was asleep.”

THE BOY COULD SEE FARTHER INTO THIS CAVITY THAN HE HAD EVER BEFORE SEEN INTO A SIMILAR ONE.

“I wasn't,” said Bill mildly.

“Wasn't,” Maud repeated.

“Don't you tell me no stories! I was awake every minute, and I saw you, Bill Ricketts!”

“Wasn't.”

“Wasn't,” Maud echoed.

“Look here!” said Mr. Foie. “What you doin' up-town alone? That Norwegian lady that works at your house told me last week your mother had went and laid down the law that the both of you couldn't come up to the Square or on Main Street without either her or the Norwegian lady bein' along with you. Told me that was the rule ever since you pried off the lid of your little bank and et a dollar and forty cents' worth of ice-cream sodies at ten cents apiece at Milo Carter's, and they had to carry the both of you home. What you doin' down here on the Square without nobody to police you?”

Maud and Bill found Mr. Fole's tone, manner, and words overwhelming. To them (after what they had seen) he was not such as other men; such a creature must be in possession of strange powers; and they felt that if they remained in presence, with his mood thus ominous, some disaster to themselves would take place. So with their eyes fixed upon him they groped for each other's hands and began to walk backward rapidly.

“You better!” said Mortimer.

Maud and Bill made a detour in the street, and returned to the sidewalk at a considerable distance from Mortimer. Then they walked on, hand in hand, looking back at him over their shoulders until they reached the corner, where they disappeared in sudden flight.

Mortimer prepared to tilt back against the telegraph-pole, but at the sound of a voice behind him languidly changed his plans.

“Fine-looking children.”

Mortimer partially rose, holding his chair to him and maintaining his sitting position; set the chair, and himself with it, at the appropriate distance from the telegraph-pole, placed his feet against the pole, and stared inscrutably at the person who had pronounced a favorable opinion of Maud and Bill.

“What say?” he inquired.

“Fine-looking children,” repeated the middle-aged stranger, who was seated in one of the National House chairs and smoking a cigar.

Mortimer's jaw moved ruminatively for a time, and again he looked long at the stranger. Finally he inquired: “You in the wholesale drug line?”

“Yes. I'm here to see Mr. Carter.”

“Well, sir,” said Mortimer, “if you want to sell an order to Milo don't say nothin' to him about them two bein' no fine-lookin' chuldem. They went and et sodies till they got sick in his store, and he can't hardly stand to have 'em even mentioned. He's one of many: they set on one feller's twelve-dollar hat from New York City.”

“Well, they're certainly fine-looking children,” said the traveler. “They're the kind that make you think they must have a mighty pretty mother.”

“You don't make no such a bad guess on that!” Mortimer responded. “Widow, too!”

“Well, if that's the case, I expect maybe I better make this town some Saturday and stay over Sunday.”

Mortimer shook his head. “You wouldn't never do it but wunst!”

“Why not?”

“Maud and Bill.”

“Oh, well, it all depends,” the traveler said, laughing. “I guess I could get on with them, all right.”

“Then you'd have it on anybody in this town,” said Mortimer. “For brains, you would. The smartest man in Marlow is tryin' it right now, and the bettin' ain't hardly any of it on him. 'Most everybody that knows Maud and Bill thinks they'll drive him out.”

“Who's that?”

“Lu Allen. You know him?”

“No.”

“Name's Lucius Brutus Allen, attorney-at-law,” Mortimer explained. “Used to go with their mother before she got married and moved away. Now she's back to live here, and a widow, you never see the like! This here Lu Allen ain't the same man. He's kind of a stocky feller, and sort o' red headed—what they is of it—and, honest, to see him lately you'd believe he thought he was President of the United States, the way he's got to dressin' up and steppin' out. Used to kind o' just shuffle around, but now he's took on kind of a prance, the way he walks. Well, sir, he can dress up and go prancin' around this town like a ring-master much as he's a mind to, and all this and that, but the majority of 'em thinks Maud and Bill are goin' to git him before long, and Lu'll decide he'll have to quit. Ain't nobodv's constitution can stand them two!”

The traveler, glancing down the street, laughed again, for he saw the tops of two small, fair heads projecting slightly beyond the corner. These heads were at right angles with the perpendicular; and four earnest blue eyes, in a vertical line, were steadfast upon Mr. Mortimer Fole.

“There they are now, peeking at you round the corner.”

But as Mortimer turned to look, the heads were lightly withdrawn. Maud and Bill clasped hands again, and ran.

They slowed to a trot, slipped through an alley, and came out on the lower side of the Square. In his free hand Bill still held the halter-buckle, though he considered it intrinsically uninteresting and wished to dispose of it. There was no law, as people say, to prevent him from tossing it away; but the thought of so obvious a disposal did not even enter his mind—for the way of a mind of seven is its own.

Bill had picked up the buckle with the intention of dropping it into something in order to watch the effect. That something having proved unavailable, Bill was left with the intention: he retained the buckle, and he still had the desire to drop it into something, in order to watch the effect. Maud comprehended this without either of them feeling any need to express in words their sympathetic understanding in the matter. They meant nothing damaging or mischievous, and were conscious of no lack of virtue.

They walked along, looking about them wistfully. Then, before a window display of the simplest kind, the impulse to pause was transmitted from Maud to Bill, and they came to a halt. Across the top of the one-story building ran the sign, “L. Zarff, Bakery and Creamery;” and through the window L. Zarff himself was to be seen, talking to a customer.

Not the window display but the appearance of this customer had arrested Maud's attention; and Bill immediately felt the reasonableness of his sister's wishing to stop. Mr. Zarff's customer would have concentrated public interest anywhere except in Marlow, where every one was used to her and sympathized with her; for, though her height was a little less than the average height of women, she weighed almost three hundred pounds. She was of middle age, and the greater part of her blameless life was spent in efforts to reduce her affliction which accounted for her present visit to Mr. Zarff's hybrid establishment.

“WELL, I'VE HEARD ABOUT YOU!” MRS. PEYTON THOUGHT PROPER TO INFORM THEM; AND SHE ADDED VEHEMENTLY, “PLENTY!”

“The doctor says I might as well try it, anyhow, Mr. Zarff,” she was explaining. “He says it wouldn't do any harm just givin' it a try. It was Mrs. Rolfo Williams told me about it. She says, 'You'll kill yourself, Ruby, just livin' on greens and one cup of hot water a day,' she says. 'Why don't you try what my cousin over in Springfield took herself down on?' she says. So she give me the program of it. 'Eat one stale roll and drink one pint of buttermilk at ten o'clock every morning,' she says, 'and don't eat nothing more till just before you go to bed,' she says, 'and then take one saucer of bran and a tea spoonful of brandy.' So I expect you'll see me here every morning for a while anyhow, Mr. Zarff, until we get on to how it seems to work out.”

“I expect you couldn't hardly do better, either,” said Mr. Zarff, preparing to serve her. “They give buttermilk for lots worse'n your trouble, Mrs. Peyton—typhoid fever and I don't know what all! Would you prefer to take it here?”

“Might just as well,” Mrs. Peyton returned. “Save me from carryin' a pitcher up-town and back every morning.”

Mr. Zarff set upon his counter a glass of buttermilk, and Mrs. Peyton regarded it favorably. “Nice and fresh it looks,” she remarked. “And I like to see them little chunks of butter floatin' round in it. So much of this buttermilk you get nowadays looks skimpy.”

“Yes'm,” he said, pleased with her praise. “You'll find our buttermilk pretty satisfactory, I guess. It's them little gobs of butter in it that make it go down so slick. That glass holds just a half a pint, Mrs. Peyton. You slide her down and I'll fill her up again for you in a jiffy.”

Mrs. Peyton raised the glass to her lips, and as she drank observed that two small figures had quietly entered the store and were standing close beside her, their earnest faces upturned to watch her. Somewhat flushed, she set the glass down empty, and Mr. Zarff refilled it.

“I expect I better eat my stale roll between the two drinks,” she said; and upon his suggestion followed him to a drawer behind the counter, to select, from a miscellany of unsold staples therein, a roll at what stage of death in life she considered helpful. Then she returned to the glass of buttermilk, and ate the roll she had chosen.

She was not comfortable during the process, which was of its nature rather difficult, but what caused the greater part of her discomfort was the fixedness of four earnest eyes upon her while she ate. “My goodness!” she exclaimed presently. “Ain't you got nothin' else to look at?”

Neither Maud nor Bill felt a reply to be necessary, and Mrs. Peyton's irritation increased. “I declare!” she complained to the proprietor. “They keep watchin' me just like two cats lookin' at a penjulum! I can't make a move! Who are them two chuldern?”

“I think they're the ones belong to Mrs. Ricketts,” Mr. Zarff replied uneasily.

Mrs. Peyton, who had finished the roll, lifted the second glass of buttermilk, but allowed it to remain half-way to her lips. “Are you two Lucy Cope Ricketts's chuldern?”

Bill nodded; and Maud, having noted this action, also nodded.

“Well, I've heard about you!” Mrs. Peyton thought proper to inform them; and she added vehemently, “Plenty!”

And, keeping her indignant gaze upon the two founts of scandal, she set the glass to her lips and drank. The children watched her with a searching curiosity which was impersonal and pure; and a growing excitement within them, as she continued to swallow, was marked by the increasing size and intensity of their glossy, azure eyes. It was unfortunate for Mrs. Peyton that she returned this stare over the top of the glass instead of looking within it.

Mr. Zarff, arranging some little cakes, with his back turned to his customer and the two eager observers, was startled by the breaking of a glass upon the floor and simultaneous sounds indicating an impressive strangulation. For a moment he saw nothing unusual, except that Mrs. Peyton had vanished, and that the observers were again outside the store. All that was to be seen of these latter was their eyes and the tops of their heads just above the sill of the display window. They were peering into the room, but not at Mr. Zarff: they seemed to be looking at something which his line of vision—obstructed by the bread-case upon the counter—prevented him from seeing. But as the choking sounds were repeated he ran out from behind the counter, and found that Mrs. Peyton had seated herself upon the floor.

Her condition did not permit her to speak, but, propping herself with one arm and hand, with the other she pointed at him, then at the fragments of the glass, and then at a milky halter-buckle which lay at some distance from her upon the floor. Gasping and making strange noises, she pointed again at him, shook her finger violently, and the unhappy man perceived that she was charging him with selling buttermilk containing old halter-buckles. And in an agony of denial he lifted his right hand to take an oath affirming his own purity and that of all his works and products.

In the midst of this great gesture he remembered the four beautiful eyes just above the level of the window-sill, and, uttering a terrible cry, he rushed forth from the store. But those eyes and their possessors were no longer within sight. Peering through the window, Maud and Bill had read his thought as the very first ghost of it began to flicker upon his face; and they delayed not. They scurried!

When they again appeared upon the Square, by way of an alley, it was upon the side opposite to L. Zarff's bakery and creamery, and the harmony which had until now prevailed between them was threatened. In dropping the halter-buckle into the glass of buttermilk, when Mrs. Peyton and Mr. Zarff went to select a roll, Bill had merely followed the impulse to experiment which had been stirred within him earlier by Mr. Fole's revelation of so much that was unusual. Bill had not intended to choke anybody, nor had he the slightest ill-will toward Mrs. Peyton. Simply, without realizing what might happen, he had sought to discover what would happen.

The discovery had been made, and he now perceived that the whole affair was another of those things, news of which reaches the home authorities in an incredibly short time and causes serious trouble. Consequently his state was one of anxiety, and the lack of harmony between him and Maud arose because of her taking the position of an immune, claiming that Bill was the sole perpetrator, and therefore would be the sole sufferer.

“Oh, oh, oh!” she said, pointing her finger at him in prophecy.

“She won't either!” he protested. “And if she does, you'll get whatever's just the same I do!”

But Maud shook her head, and smiled a superior smile. “Oh, oh, oh!” she repeated.

“You hush up!”

“Spank, spank!” said Maud. “Spankety-spankety-spank!” And she laughed happily.

Bill felt that he could not much longer endure this sister of his. He declined to retain her hand, placed both of his own in his pockets, and walked broodingly; whereupon Maud began to skip light-heartedly from side to side.

“Spank!” she sand. “Spankety-spankety-spank!”

THE DUMMY DRUNKENLY FOLLOWED MAUD ACROSS THE SIDEWALK, WAVERED AT THE CURB, THEN PLUNGED INTO THE GUTTER.

“You quit that!” said Bill, as her skipping brought her into sidelong collision with him. “You better keep away from me!”

“Spankety-spank!”

To Bill, few things had ever seemed so odious as that small and rosy face brimming with sweet cruelty, and it was but the more hateful in his sight because of his conviction that Maud was a true prophetess, and that her prediction was destined to be fulfilled, Slowly vague impulses gathered in his mind and developed there until they became a purpose: if he was to suffer—and he doubted it not—at least he could make sure that he did not suffer alone. He determined that Maud should be involved in something.

In front of Messieurs Swazey & Raymond's (Dry-Goods, Millinery and Notions) stood four ladies dressed in summer skirts and linen coats, but headless and feetless. Bill stopped before these and regarded them thoughtfully, and Maud halted likewise. After a moment Bill grasped a sleeve of the nearest dummy and gave it a twitch. Maud at once grasped the other sleeve of the dummy and shook it.

“How do do, missuz?” she said. “You want to go walkin'?” she added, as the dummy wabbled pleasantly upon its stand. “You want to take a walk, missuz?”

“You can't make her walk,” Bill said. “Look at me!” And he gave the dummy a jerk that moved it several inches. “Look at me, Maud.”

“No!” shouted Maud. “Wook at me. Wook how I make her walk.”

“Fuff! You aren't any good at it! Can't budge her an inch!”

“I can't?” Maud cried.

“No, you can't. Let's see you, then, if you think you can. You pull as hard as you can, and she won't budge an inch. Go ahead and give her the biggest pull you can.”

Maud gave her the biggest pull she could. Bill instantly released the sleeve by which he had been detaining the dummy; and the latter drunkenly followed Maud across the sidewalk, wavered at the curb, then plunged magnificently into the gutter, which the morning water-cart had just filled with brown wetness. Maud accompanied her new friend, full length.

But at an uproar on the part of Messieurs Swazey & Raymond, who were already on their way out of the store, she rose and followed Bill down the street. Gallantly he slackened his gait, suffering her to overtake him and to grasp his hand (since once more the future was equal before them) and for the third time in one short hour they fled round a corner and disappeared from the threatening Square.

Their mood was changed. With no evil intentions, and in what had seemed to them full virtue, they all at once found themselves enmeshed in wickedness: a coil of Fate had tripped them. Something inscrutable had wrought out of their innocent actions results that were catastrophes. But until punishment overtook them they were free; and although they knew their condition now to be that of outlaws, their spirits rose to concert pitch. Thenceforth they were consciously Bad. Forced into the ranks of anarchy by the surprising and unfathomable laws of Nature, they deliberately made war upon society.

They passed a cottage built flush with the sidewalk, and at an open window a little, quaint old woman sat reading a Bible. She pored over it, holding it within three inches of her spectacles. Bill crossed the sidewalk on his hands and knees, sprang up suddenly before the window, and bellowed at the top of his voice:

“Waw!”

The quaint old woman uttered a lamentable cackle, dropped her Bible, and beat the air with her hands.

“Waw!” squeaked Maud; and again fled after Bill.

Throughout the morning they pursued their adventures.

BILL SPRANG UP SUDDENLY BEFORE THE WINDOW, AND BELLOWED “WAW!”

At noon the Square became deserted; even Mortimer Fole was gone. However, before the court-house clock struck one, he reappeared, smoking a cigar which the traveler in drugs had given him; but he did not return to the terrasse of the National House. The glare was too great there now, and Mortimer would not use the telegraph-pole again until the western sun threw the shadow of the court-house that far eastward. Instead, he drifted to the shade of the maples in the court-house yard, and was preparing to droop upon the cool old stone steps of the building, when he paused to address a gentleman emerging from the interior.

“I expect it's about time you was showin' up, Lu. I reckon you're wanted.”

Mr. Lucius Brutus Allen did not strongly resemble the prancing ring-master Mortimer had sketched to the traveler. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied that his figure was sturdy, even the least bit portly; nor that there was a sparseness upon the top of his head and a hint of auburn all over it. Furthermore, his apparel was new, and bespoke a pleasant liveliness of fancy; one would have looked for it, in truth, rather upon the Riviera than in Marlow. And his air and glance were of a similar liveliness; there was a sparkle and twinkle about him—a special gaiety which never comes to very young lovers, who are commonly haggard, but is peculiar to middle age when middle age finds itself in a lover's condition.

THEIR POSITION, VIEWED AS A PLACE OF REFUGE, WAS NOT DISCREDITABLE, SINCE IT HAD THE ADVANTAGE OF ALMOST PERFECT INACCESSIBILITY.

He fanned himself with a Leghorn hat of a Cavalier design, and inquired mildly: “Who wants me, Mortimore? I've been looking up records ever since early this morning, and I haven't heard the latest news of our city. What is it?”

“Maud and Bill,” said Mortimer with almost sinister gravity.

“What have they been up to?”

“Well, I don't know as what you might call it,” said Mortimer slowly. “I did hear they was liable to be a couple lawsuits work out of it, and I expect maybe their mother might be lookin' fer you to take charge o' the defense, as it were.”

“I'd like to hear the particulars,” said Mr. Allen. “What have Maud and Bill been doing?”

“It wouldn't be no such a strain on a person's voice to answer you what they ain't,” Mr. Fole responded. “They begun on me. Tried to drop an ole, rusty halter-buckle down my shirt; then they took and went and stuck it into some buttermilk over at Zarff's pore Ruby Peyton was drinkin' to take her down; and it like to killed her, because she'd got it about half swallered before she coaxed it up.

“Soon as her wind come back she got kind of hysterical, and she accused Zarff of all this and that, but Fred Howk had happened to be passin' a couple o' minutes before, and he says he see Bill Ricketts drop somep'm in a glass o' buttermilk while Ruby and Zarff was around behind the counter, and Howk says he didn't think nothin' of it because he thought it was probably Bill's own buttermilk he was playin' with, and went on about his business till he heard the fuss and all Ruby was makin'.

“Well, sir, I stepped up and identified the halter-buckle, and that settled it, and Ruby says she wouldn't hold Zarff responsible; but when I told her where Bill found this here halter-buckle, and says how many microbes and all this and that was prob'ly on it, she says she was goin' straight to Lucy Cope Ricketts's house. I reckon she didn't hardly git there before Swazey & Raymond got a telephone call in to settle fer a summer outfit on one o' their dummies that Maud and Bill took and rolled in the gutter.

“The next I heard of 'em they like to scared ole Mrs. Swanter into a spasm, squawkin' at her, and her daughter-in-law chased 'em, and they run spang into Ed Copes's new cement walk that he'd just finished layin' to-day.

“They drug out of it before Ed could git to 'em; and next thing, here come word that they was in the other end o' town, 'way in the Ferris & Wheeler direction, and had settled down to a steady chasin' of cats, or chickens, or anything that come their way.

“The Norwegian lady that works at their house, she was up-town by that time, and their mother was out lookin' fer 'em, too, somewhere. Well, sir, the Norwegian she run off in the Ferris & Wheeler direction; and then Rolfo Williams says one his customers just told him they was around behind the lumber-yard, throwin' sticks over a fence at a cow in a lot over there that ain't in no good condition to be run all over creation thataway, and this customer says somebody was on the way to tell the woman that owns the cow.”

Mortimer paused to smoke, and Mr. Allen's air of gaiety was less visible; indeed, he looked worried.

“What was the end of it?” he inquired.

“Ain't ended,” Mortimer replied languidly. “The Norwegian and their mother hunted 'em up hill and down dale, but fast as either of 'em would git one place they'd hear of Bill and Maud another. Wasn't till only about ten minutes ago that the Norwegian got 'em treed.”

“Well, I'm glad she did,” said Lucius, with obvious relief. “Did she take them home?”

“Home? No!” Mortimer returned with emphasis. “Them two are the porest examples of home bodies we got in our little city. I reckon she don't see much chance o' gettin' 'em home till they're good and ready to come—not without she calls out the fire department!”

“Why not?”

HE LOOKED A LITTLE LIKE AN OLD PORTRAIT OF A TOPER, OWING TO HIS HEATED CONDITION.

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Fole, enjoying his cigar, and drawlingly delaying his narrative, as he observed tokens of impatience on the part of the listener. “I was comin' by there——”

“Coming by where?”

“Where the Norwegian's got 'em treed. I say I was comin' by there on my way up-town after dinner, a few minutes ago, and she ast me to set and watch 'em while she went fer their mother. Well, I says I didn't know but what I would; but they wasn't no shade around there, and I can't stand no such sun as I used to could, so I ast Mrs. Rolfo Williams to do it. She lives right by there, and she savs she'd do it. Anyhow, when I come away she was there, lookin' up at 'em and coaxin' 'em not to move.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucius demanded crossly. “Looking up where at them? Why 'coaxing them not to move'?”

“They're up on the roof of the Baptist church,” Mortimer replied.

“What!”

“They won't fall off!” said Mortimer, and as Lucius hurried away, plainly disturbed, called after him bitterly, “Not in a thousand years!”

Nevertheless, Lucius broke into a trot.

When he reached the church he found that ample matron, Mrs. Rolfo Williams, fanning herself in the yard beside the white frame building, with a small group of neighbors about her, all looking up at two small stained and smudgy figures about twenty-five feet above them.

The roof of the church was as simple as the roof of a Noah's Ark, which, except for the steeple at one end, it perfectly resembled. There was an oval air-hole in the steeple, just above the ridge of the roof; and Maud and Bill, after literally seeking sanctuary from a populace which threatened to rise from several directions at once, had climbed up into the steeple, crawled out through the air-hole, and had slid down the roof to the tin gutter, where their heels prevented them from descending the rest of the way through the air.

Here they were now standing, or, rather, they were obliquely reposing; and their position, viewed as a place of refuge, was not discreditable, since it had the advantage of almost perfect inaccessibility. If, however, they had selected it as a hiding-place, little praise can be given them for intelligence, since no spot in all the town could have been more conspicuously in the view of all upward-looking people.

Mrs. Williams and her friends were alternately calling to the children to “lay still” and whispering anxiously among themselves, like people in a sick-room who are keeping something from the patient. And upon Lucius's appearance they greeted him gravely, but with so much covert conversation aside as to embarrass him somewhat.

“Is their ma on the way?” Mrs. Williams asked quickly.

“I don't know,” he answered, wiping his pink forehead, and gazing upward in perplexity. “I don't know where she is.”

“Of course we all thought you'd be with her,” Mrs. Williams said. “That Norwegian girl says she was somewhere down around the Ferris & Wheeler direction, and we supposed of course you'd be down there too. Anyway, that's where the Norwegian girl went to look for her. What do you think had ought to be done?”

“I don't know,” he said, still gazing up at the two small figures. So far as could be seen, they were subject to no agitation; their manner seemed to be entirely non-committal and impersonal.

“Well, maybe their mother can think of a way to get 'em down. We can't!” said Mrs. Williams, “One thing certain: they can't get back the way they come. They couldn't climb up that slant to the air-hole to save their lives. It's too steep, and them shingles are too slick. Mrs. Heming, here, went over to Lodge's paint-shop to see if they didn't have ladders long enough to reach 'em, but all the painters had went to that new farmhouse they're buildin' four miles out on the Acton road. And if you can think of any way to get them two down without callin' out the fire department, I certainly think you'd be doin' a favor to their mother, Lu Allen! There wouldn't be no end to the talk it'd make, nor no end to the time the talk'd go on, either, and I expect Lucy Cope Ricketts has had just about enough mortification over Maud and Bill without its spreadin' all over creation that the fire department had to be called out on their account!”

“Yes,” said Lucius. “We'll have to see what we can do.”

He went thoughtfully round to the open front door of the church, entered the vestibule, passed through a smaller door, and ascended the hot and cobwebby stairway to the steeple. When he looked down through the air-hole he saw the two fair heads of Maud and Bill about eighteen feet, in an oblique line, below him, and beyond and below them the upturned faces of the group upon the ground.

At sight of his shadowy countenance framed in the oval air-hole, a little like an old portrait of a toper, owing to Mr. Allen's heated condition, there were sharp exclamations, and then every one said “Sh!”

Lucius put his head out of the hole.

The next instant his strong impulse was to withdraw it, for from out an alley across the street there came a flying lady, exorbitantly lovely, followed at a little distance by a blond young woman of Scandinavian appearance.

The flying lady, hatless, and with blue silk blowing from her like the garments of a Winged Victory, did not go out of her way to enter the churchyard by means of the gate, though it stood open. She came straight at the fence, which was of boards set horizontally with spaces between, and not so much climbed it as flew over it. Her lips were parted to call to the children; but she did not call. She uttered but the briefest sound, checking it almost before it was audible, and then she stood still, pale indeed, but able to gaze quietly upward. Her eyes were wonderful, like Maud's and Bill's; and they were never more wonderful than as she stood there, looking up at Maud and Bill—and at Lucius.

This sedentary man, confronted by an athletic crisis, permitted himself to moan. He even went so far as to wish that he had happened to be out of town that day, and for a moment or two his feelings toward Maud and Bill were uncharitable. He had no wish to break his neck, but more than that, his emphatic impression was that his was no figure to be displayed steeple-jacking and circus-performing before any person whom he was gradually inducing to regard him in a romantic light. It seemed to him that even if his performance should prove successful, she might well inform him later that her sentiments were grateful but altogether sisterly; and if she did, Lucius felt that none of the other ladies in the audience would blame her.

However, he was sorrowfully assured that her regard for his grace and dignity, and even for his safety, were but little in the balance with her feelings as a mother; and he addressed his soul gloomily to the adventure. Tossing the sufficiently stout rope of the church-bell out upon the roof, he squeezed parlously through the oval air-hole—and well he knew how red and round his face looked, and how tight a fit the air-hole was!

Arrived upon the ridge, he grasped the bell-rope and slid, whereupon the bell uttered a loud clang. His coat rucked up over his head; and during the glissade he heard a tearing sound, and banished all thoughts of the tender fabrics that he wore and of what was happening to them—because such thoughts made him bitter and even hotter than he was.

When he checked his descent beside the children, he observed that neither of them seemed to be frightened—they were apprehensive, perhaps; but their apprehensions were not connected with the possibilities of a fall from the roof. Maud said nothing, and Bill, after briefly exclaiming, “Say!” was likewise silent.

“Look here,” said Lucius. “We have to get up this roof and into that air-hole again—the same place we got out of. Maud, you climb up my clothes, and put your feet on my shoulders, and then on my head, and keep hold of the rope.”

“KEEP A-CRAWLIN', LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THAT'S IT! WHOOPSEDAISY! UP WE GO!”

And when Maud had obeyed, and one of her heels was quite evidently upon the least protected area of his head, “That's the ticket!” he said, though his enthusiasm was feebler than he intended. “Be sure not to let go of the rope, Maud, and keep on crawling. Now, Bill, it's your turn—you climb up me just the same way Maud did, only after you reach my shoulders I believe it won't be necessary for you to step on my head. Don't be afraid: if either of you begins to slide, I'm right behind you and I won't let you slide far. Keep a-crawlin', ladies and gentlemen! That's it! Whoopsedaisy! Up we go!”

Up they did go, like three Alpinists conquering an outrageous summit. And into the air-hole they passed, one after the other, Lucius last, and stirringly aware—as he extricated himself inside the steeple, after a short exhibition of gymnastics—that it would have been better if he had put his feet through the air-hole first instead of his head. It was his conviction that after such a spectacle no woman who saw it would ever voluntarily look at him again; at least not without derisive laughter. He sighed deeply, secured his hat from the ledge where he had left it, and followed the children down the wooden stairs. He did not even dust himself: he was that low in his mind.

When Maud and Bill reached the narrow door at the bottom of the stairway they could look out through the vestibule of the church, and they beheld their mother slowly approaching, attended by solicitous women. There was something unusual and disquieting about her: she walked so oddly and she was so white; and Mrs. Rolfo Williams kept dipping a handkerchief in a cup of water, and then offering it to her.

Maud and Bill halted abruptly, but for only an instant. Simultaneously, they perceived a dim connection between their own conduct and this unprecedented manner of their mother. Vaguely, but with a rising terror, they understood that they had done something peculiar to her; and they were not remorseful but appalled: it was as if unwittingly they had damaged the steadfast sun in the sky above them. If Bill had thrown a pebble at a sparrow, and had hit the sun instead, and broken it, and put out all the light (a thing they could have conceived as readily as this present strangeness), they would have felt just as they felt now. And their thoughts were of a punishment proportionate to the huge circumstances.

Maud and Bill opened their mouths. Sound issued therefrom. They seized each the hand of the other. Once more they fled away. They turned and scurried through the church and out through the door of the smaller room behind the altar. Then, climbing the back fence, they floundered through a meadow beyond, roaring, not having closed their mouths since they opened them in the vestibule.

“Well, anyway, there's one thing certain,” Mrs. Rolfo Williams said, comforting the stricken mother. “The way they just took one look at you, and hollered and run, it shows you try to do your duty by 'em, or they wouldn't of been so scared of you!”

“How could they?” Mrs. Ricketts cried. “People will believe that I torture them!”

“No, no,” said Mrs. Williams. “And, anyhow, if you was to do a little of that, why, nobody—” Here she paused, thinking it more tactful to change the subject. “Honey, you better let me dab this nice, cold handkerchief on your forehead a little more. I expect you're feelin'——”

“No, not any more,” said Mrs. Ricketts, smiling wanly. “Where is Mr. Allen?”

“Gone home, I expect,” the good woman answered. “I certainly don't blame him. Not after I see his clothes close to!”

She was mistaken, however, for Mr. Allen had not gone home. He had accompanied Maud and Bill in flight. He did not vociferate as they did, but he fled as they did; he panted and perspired as they did; and his mental distress was as great as theirs. During the past few weeks he had become a poignantly sensitive man, of the highest and most delicate ideals in all matters concerning his personal appearance; and now his mind was full of pictures of what that appearance had been on the roof of the Baptist church. Only lovers can comprehend what he felt and suffered.

A lane ran through the meadow, and, when the fugitives reached it, Maud and Bill would have turned in the direction that led to open country, but Lucius galloped before them and beckoned urgently. “Here! This way!” he shouted. “I'm running away, too! Let's go this way!”

He had their confidence, for they followed him; and he led them down the lane, and then through the alley that brought them to their own back yard. Halting at the empty stable, he found the alley doors of the carriage-house unfastened, and threw them open.

“OH!” SHE CRIED. “BAD! BAD! BAD!”

“Let's go in here,” he suggested. “I want to hide as much as you do!”

They looked at him inquiringly for a moment, then Maud took his right hand and Bill took his left, and they entered the stable together, Maud and Bill still sniffling pathetically at intervals. But they had not gone half-way across the uneven old floor when a radiant lady stepped upon the threshold of the wide doors opposite them, sunshine flooding the yard behind her.

“Oh!” she cried. “Bad! Bad! Bad!”

“Aren't they, though!” said Lucius, and for that moment forgot not only how he looked then, but how he had looked on the church roof. “By glory, how I love 'em for it!”

To the dumfounding surprise of Maud and Bill, and with the result that never afterward in all their lives did they once lose confidence in the wisdom and good faith of their present rescuer, their mother kissed all three of them.

ANOTHER LUCIUS BRUTUS ALLEN STORY—“THE ONLY CHILD”—IN THE JANUARY NUMBER.