VI
The peculiar thing about Alderbury is that if you travel by motor along the highway, you pass through it without knowing. It is not on the main-traveled road, but on what the blue book refers to as an “alternate route,” a fact upon which the citizens of Alderbury congratulate themselves every day of their lives. Says the blue book:
41.1 20 PITTER'S BRIDGE (no town); turn sharp left across bridge and R.R., immediately turning right and follow main road through.
42.3 12 ALDERBURY. At fork in front of small white church keep left, passing golf-course on left, bearing right down-grade into
But you're away beyond Alderbury by now, and, unless you've been reading the book, you never know it! You see, it is one of those New England villages which begin nowhere in particular and end the same way. A half-dozen houses are set down at long intervals along the main road, and there's the “small white church,” too, and a low-browed building that holds the general store and the post-office in front, a blacksmith's shop at the back, and a meeting-hall upstairs. But things are so far apart that it would never occur to you that you were passing through a town. You might, were you not too busy holding on your hat or watching the speedometer, catch over a hedge a glimpse of a modest white-painted house set amidst trees and flowers and per-haps exclaim, “How charming!” And later, as you swept past the boundary of the golf-course, you'd very likely see the clubhouse peering from its grove of maples on a far knoll and say, “Why, there's a perfectly good clubhouse over there! Now, who do you suppose ever uses it?”
If, however, instead of tearing along through the elm-shaded street, you will slow down and, as the blue book would say, “turn sharp left at stone watering-trough” and follow the street that leads slightly uphill, you will make the discovery that there is more to Alderbury than meets the goggled eyes of the hurrying motorist. For back of the main road are more than a dozen pleasant summer residences, some genuinely old, some, recently built, looking more ancient than the genuine. There are no very large estates in Alderbury. An acre or two satisfies the most ambitious taste; for with sixty acres of rolling field and forest at the back door in which you have a proprietary right, what is the use of a large holding? In Alderbury when folks want to stretch their legs they cross the road or pass through a rear gate and there is the golf-course at their service.
The clubhouse is small, clap-boarded and green-shuttered. It was a farmhouse for some seventy years before the club bought it and put a wide veranda all around it and smartened it up. There are sleeping-rooms upstairs—small, dormer-windowed compartments that look out into the maple branches—and a big living-room downstairs that takes up all one end of the building. Then there's a blue-and-white dining-room and a yellow-and-gray ladies' room and a brown-and-buff tap-room and a kitchen and all the other necessary features. Very wisely, in smartening it up, they left as much of the old appearance as possible, and have even added to it wherever and whenever antiquity is compatible with comfort. Thus, the living-room fireplace is broad enough to shed its genial warmth into a dozen faces, and yet, with its old-fashioned crane and its big wrought-iron fire-dogs and its stingy little shelf above, it still preserves Colonial traditions.
Around the fireplace on a rainy morning a few days later a half-dozen men were seated. As it was but ten o'clock, the feminine element was still lacking. There is an unwritten law to the effect that until ten-thirty or eleven the clubhouse shall be sacred to the men, a number of whom dwell there up under the eaves. There was a good deal of tobacco smoke in the air, and the hearth and floor were littered with yesterday evening's papers. (At Alderbury one didn't read the morning paper until nearly noon; and one didn't care!) Major Prescott, chairman of the Tournament Committee, was posting a handicap list on the notice-board with the aid of thumb tacks and some mild profanity. The Major had taken on Jerry Forbes for this morning, and was much disgusted with the weather conditions. Jerry, a tall, broad-shouldered youth recently out of college, was less troubled. The Major's golf was a bit finicky, and secretly Jerry was blessing the driving rainstorm. The Major resumed his chair in front of the blazing hickory logs and glanced at his righthand neighbor from under pent brows.
“Rotten weather, Shortland, for your introduction to the settlement.”
“I don't mind it, Major. I tramped twenty miles one day last week in just such weather.”
“The devil you did! What for?”
“I don't know.” Allan tapped the ashes from his pipe, reached for a pouch which lay on the arm of a nearby chair, and refilled his bowl, tamping down the tobacco with a long brown finger.
“Good Lord, Major! don't you know better than to ask 'China' why he does anything?” inquired Tom Frazer. “The chap's a law unto himself.”
“Don't see, though,” grumbled the Major, “why any one would want to tramp around country on a day like this. Who invented the New England climate, any way?”
“Don't glare at me,” said Tom. “I didn't.”
“Fine thing for the farmers,” observed Burton Bryant. “We needed rain badly. Roads were getting fierce, too,”
“I don't see,” suggested young Russell, who was smoking a pipe and parching his tongue because the Major made such a fuss about cigarettes—“I don't see why you couldn't cover in the fair green with waterproof cloth or something, the way they do with the tobacco-fields.”
“Wish you could,” said*Tom Frazer. “It would keep my drives down. Let's put it up to the committee.”
“May I ask,” inquired Allan Shortland, “whose tobacco I am smoking?”
“Mine,”replied Jerry Forbes. “Like it?”
“No.”
Allan knocked his pipe against his shoe. “Baccy, please.”
Four pouches were laughingly proffered, and Allan gravely accepted them all and filled from each. “There's a popular impression,” he said, “that Italian tobacco is no good. I bought some in Florence once, though, that was remarkable. I've always meant to go back there for more. It's a little shop in the via—what's that street that runs along the hill there where they're always plowing with the white oxen, Smith?”
“Blessed if I know, old man! The only time I was in Florence we motored and”
“Consequently saw nothing,” concluded Allan, returning the pouches and brushing tobacco from his clothes. “There's only one way to do Italy or any other country: walk.”
“That's all well enough for you, you lucky beggar,” said the Major; “but what you going to do when you've got your women folks along? Can't see them puddling through twenty miles of rain, can you?”
“It's a mistake to have them with you,” replied Allan calmly. “Send them ahead by train—or—motor, if you like—and meet them now and then.”
The three married men present set up a howl of derision.
“You get married, Shortland, and try it,” said Bryant.
“I'm thinking of it.”
“What!” It was a chorus. “Getting married?”
“Yes.” Allan observed the fire thoughtfully.
“Rather!” exclaimed George Smith. “Can't seem to see you married, old man.” Smith half closed his eyes, as though making the effort.
“Of course she's a Chinese lady?” suggested the Major, with a wink for the others.
“No, American. At least, I suppose so.”
“You suppose so!” laughed Frazer. “Don't you know?”
“Why, yes; when I stop to consider the matter, I know that she is. Her nationality never occurred to me, that's all. Yes, she's American. Must be.”
“Anything very startling in the idea?”
“Did you meet abroad, 'China'?” asked Bryant.
“Er—yes, on the other side.”
“I say, fellows, he doesn't seem real certain of that!” chuckled Smith. “When's it going to be, old man?”
“I don't know. Not for a while, I suppose.”
“Do we—er—know the fortunate lady?” asked the Major.
“Possibly. You won't mind if I don't tell you any more just now? The fact is—” Allan's voice tapered away into silence. After a moment, “I believe announcements usually come from the lady,” he added. “That is correct, Major? I appeal to you because you have had some experience, I think.”
The Major joined in the laugh. The present Mrs. Prescott was the third.
“I say,” suggested Smith presently, “we can't get outdoors this morning. What about a game of bridge? Major?”
The Major glanced disgustedly at the rain and grunted acquiescence.
“Shortland, how about you?”
“Thanks, no. I never play bridge in the morning. It upsets me.”
Bryant and young Russell, however, were willing to play, and the quartet moved away. Jerry Forbes turned to Allan.
“Where are you hanging out, Shortland?” he asked. “I wish I'd known you were here. I could have put you up for as long as you liked. Perhaps it isn't too late?, You're not rooming here, are you?”
“Thanks, that's very good of you, but I have a room with a Mrs. Whipple near the post-office. It's a very comfortable place.”
“Mrs. Whipple!” exclaimed Jerry. “Why, I never knew she took lodgers.”
“She told me she never had before,” replied Allan. “In fact, she didn't seem to want to take me at first. And then Dobbin rather complicated it.”
“Who's Dobbin? A horse?”
“Dog. Mrs. Whipple keeps a cat, and she was afraid Dobbin would chase it or something. I don't see why he should. It's a very ugly cat.”
“So she took you in, eh? Why, Mrs. Whipple is the toniest old dame in the settlement, Shortland! Mayflower descendant and all that sort of thing. Her grandfather or some one chased the Indians out of Alderbury, I believe.” Jerry observed the other wonderingly. “How the dickens did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Why, persuade her to let a room to you! She never would before.”
“Oh, I don't know,” replied Allan vaguely. “I told her, for one thing, that if she didn't take me in, I'd have to live over here; and I said you chaps played poker and bridge and drank too many high-balls, and that it was no place for me. So she gave me a very nice corner room, with breakfasts, and Dobbin has a stall in the stable. It's quite comfortable.”
“That's a fine way to get at her!” said Jerry, with a grin. “By the way, have you taken out a membership?”
“No; I have a two weeks' card.”
“Oh, I rather fancied from something you said that you'd decided to spend some time with us. If you are going to do that, you know, a season membership will cost you only fifty, and I'd be glad to propose you.”
“Thanks, but I hardly know yet how long I shall stay. It altogether depends on the dove-cot.”
“On—the what?”
“The dove-cot. Now, don't tell me,” he added severely, “that you don't know what a dove-cot is!”
“I know what it is all right, but I'm blest if I know what it's got to do with your staying in Alderbury!”
“I've taken them up as a hobby. Every one should have a hobby, Forbes. It-er-keeps you young, they say. Ever hear of Andrew Carnegie?”
“The name sounds familiar,” replied the other.
“His hobby is to present libraries. Mine is to present dove-cots. Carnegie, though, makes a town dig down and pay for part of the library itself. I don't do that. I present dove-cots outright. Which shows that as a philanthropist I am 'way ahead of him. Just now I am engaged in erecting a dove-cot for Mrs. Vernon.”
“But—but what the deuce are they for?” asked Jerry, uncertain whether to take the matter seriously.
“Dove-cots?” Allan gravely considered the question for a moment. Finally, “Dove-cots,” he replied, “belong in the category of garden accessories. No garden should be without one. Got one, by the way?”
Jerry shook his head.
“I suppose,” he ventured with a grin, “you don't carry them around with you?”
“Oh, no. By the way, that reminds me. I suppose you have a carpenter here?”
“Yes, there's an old chap named Haley, who lives in the first house beyond the store toward The Falls. I don't believe, though, he'd be capable of making a dove-cot, if that's what you're thinking of”
“Oh, they're not difficult. The hardest part is the thatching. I'd have to do that myself. You bundle the straw. together so—and bring it down over the roof”
“Shortland, you're an awful ass,” laughed Jerry. “For a while I really believed in your confounded dove-cots! Feel like some golf? It isn't raining much now.”
It stopped raining entirely after luncheon, and by three o'clock the sun came out. And with it came the ladies, and the clubhouse put on a gayer aspect. Mrs. Vernon and Beryl drove over about four. Driving or motoring to the club was rather frowned on, but Mrs. Vernon's position was sufficiently secure to allow an occasional lapse. George Smith, having just holed-out at the ninth, hurried over to help the ladies from the landaulet, only to find the privilege disputed by Jerry Forbes. On the porch Jerry said appealingly:
“Can't we have that game you promised me, Miss Vernon?”
“Are you sure there was a promise, Mr. Forbes?” asked Beryl, her glance traveling up and down the porch, and her head nodding in answer to salutations.
“Well—almost, any way. Won't you make it a real promise and—and 'do it now'?”
“Do I look, Mr. Forbes, as though I were dressed for golf?” asked Beryl smilingly. Jerry viewed the sheath-like afternoon costume dubiously.
“Couldn't you—er—let it out or something?” he asked.
“I'm afraid not. Besides, I'm a very poor player, Mr. Forbes. You wouldn't enjoy playing with me a bit. Still, some day, if you like What have you done with Mr. Shortland, Mr. Smith?”
“Lost him,” answered Smith. “He disappeared after luncheon; said he was going to take that dog of his for a walk.”
“That awful dog!” exclaimed Mrs. Vernon, with a smile.
“He had him over here yesterday,” chuckled Smith, “and tied him to a chair. Half-way to the first tee he caught up with us, chair and all. After that he followed us around, and I stepped on him fifty times. Made me so nervous I couldn't do a thing, give you my word. He beat me hands-down.”
“The dog?” asked Jerry facetiously.
“Rather! You try it some time and see what you can do with a fool dog under your feet every shot!”
“Shortland was telling me this morning about the dove-cot, Mrs. Vernon,” said Jerry. “Rather a clever idea, I think.”
“The—the dove-cot?” faltered Mrs. Vernon.
“Yes, the one he's going to put up in your garden,” replied Jerry cheerfully. “Unless it's all a silly joke?” he added dubiously and inquiringly.
“Don't ask me!” sighed Mrs. Vernon. “If Mr. Shortland says he is going to put a dove-cot in my garden, I suppose I'm going to have a dove-cot in my garden! He—he's the most determined man I ever saw!”
“He's a wonder!” said Jerry. “He taught us a new card game last night—Pie-Face, or something like that, he called it. Said it was a Chinese game two thousand years old, but I'll bet a hat he made it up himself, because he kept springing new rules all the time.”
“Won seven dollars from me,” chuckled Smith. “It—it was a fine game—for him!”
“You deserved to lose,” laughed Beryl. “I have a feeling that if one followed Mr. Shortland's directions long enough, one would find oneself in jail—or an asylum! We have quite a crowd here to-day, Mr. Forbes.”
“Yes, in another week or two we'll have the whole gang back, I guess. The Winthrops came yesterday, you know. And the Packers will be here the twenty-seventh. I say, how about the mixed handicap, Miss Vernon? I wish you'd play with me.”
“Thanks, but I'm not sure that I'll play at all. Really, Mr. Forbes, you must believe me when I tell you that I'm an awful duffer at golf. I neither play very often nor very well.”
“Oh, we'd get by all right, Miss Vernon. It's two weeks from Friday. I'll put our names down, and then if you want to back out, it won't matter a bit. I mean—well, it will to me, you know, but”
“That is what I call a brilliant recovery,” laughed Beryl. “No, don't count on me yet, Mr. Forbes. I'll let you know later. Mamma, -shall we drive over and call on the Winthrops?”
“I suppose we'd better. Don't forget this evening, Mr. Smith. We dine at seven. Mr. Forbes, would you mind calling my carriage?”