Seventeen






XVI

THE SHOWER

She continued to be thoughtful until after lunch, when, upon the sun's disappearance behind a fat cloud, Jane and the heavens exchanged dispositions for the time—the heavens darkened and Jane brightened. She was in the front hall, when the sunshine departed rather abruptly, and she jumped for joy, pointing to the open door. “Look! Looky there!” she called to her brother. Richly ornamented, he was descending the front stairs, his embellishments including freshly pressed white trousers, a new straw hat, unusual shoes, and a blasphemous tie. “I'm goin' to get to sail my boat,” Jane shouted. “It's goin' to rain.”

“It is not,” said William, irritated. “It's not going to anything like rain. I s'pose you think it ought to rain just to let you sail that chunk of wood!”

“It's goin' to rain—it's goin' to rain!” (Jane made a little singsong chant of it.) “It's goin' to rain—it gives Willie a pain—it's goin' to rain—it gives Willie a pain—it's goin' to—”

He interrupted her sternly. “Look here! You're old enough to know better. I s'pose you think there isn't anything as important in the world as your gettin' the chance to sail that little boat! I s'pose you think business and everything else has got to stop and get ruined, maybe, just to please you!” As he spoke he walked to an umbrella-stand in the hall and deliberately took therefrom a bamboo walking-stick of his father's. Indeed, his denunciation of Jane's selfishness about the weather was made partly to reassure himself and settle his nerves, strained by the unusual procedure he contemplated, and partly to divert Jane's attention. In the latter effort he was unsuccessful; her eyes became strange and unbearable.

She uttered a shriek:

“Willie's goin' to carry a CANE!”

“You hush up!” he said, fiercely, and hurried out through the front door. She followed him to the edge of the porch; she stood there while he made his way to the gate, and she continued to stand there as he went down the street, trying to swing the cane in an accustomed and unembarrassed manner.

Jane made this difficult.

“Willie's got a CANE!” she screamed. “He's got papa's CANE!” Then, resuming her little chant, she began to sing: “It's goin' to rain—Willie's got papa's cane—it's goin' to rain—Willie's got papa's cane!” She put all of her voice into a final effort. “MISS PRATT'LL GET WET IF YOU DON'T TAKE AN UMBERELLER-R-R!”

The attention of several chance pedestrians had been attracted, and the burning William, breaking into an agonized half-trot, disappeared round the corner. Then Jane retired within the house, feeling that she had done her duty. It would be his own fault if he got wet.

Rain was coming. Rain was in the feel of the air—and in Jane's hope.

She was not disappointed. Mr. Genesis, so secure of fair weather in the morning, was proved by the afternoon to be a bad prophet. The fat cloud was succeeded by others, fatter; a corpulent army assailed the vault of heaven, heavy outriders before a giant of evil complexion and devastating temper.

An hour after William had left the house, the dust in the streets and all loose paper and rubbish outdoors rose suddenly to a considerable height and started for somewhere else. The trees had colic; everything became as dark as winter twilight; streaks of wildfire ran miles in a second, and somebody seemed to be ripping up sheets of copper and tin the size of farms. The rain came with a swish, then with a rattle, and then with a roar, while people listened at their garret doorways and marveled. Window-panes turned to running water;—it poured.

Then it relented, dribbled, shook down a few last drops; and passed on to the countryside. Windows went up; eaves and full gutters plashed and gurgled; clearer light fell; then, in a moment, sunshine rushed upon shining green trees and green grass; doors opened—and out came the children!

Shouting, they ran to the flooded gutters. Here were rivers, lakes, and oceans for navigation; easy pilotage, for the steersman had but to wade beside his craft and guide it with a twig. Jane's timely boat was one of the first to reach the water.

Her mother had been kind, and Jane, with shoes and stockings left behind her on the porch, was a happy sailor as she waded knee-deep along the brimming curbstones. At the corner below the house of the Baxters, the street was flooded clear across, and Jane's boat, following the current, proceeded gallantly onward here, sailed down the next block, and was thoughtlessly entering a sewer when she snatched it out of the water. Looking about her, she perceived a gutter which seemed even lovelier than the one she had followed. It was deeper and broader and perhaps a little browner, wherefore she launched her ship upon its dimpled bosom and explored it as far as the next sewer-hole or portage. Thus the voyage continued for several blocks with only one accident—which might have happened to anybody. It was an accident in the nature of a fall, caused by the sliding of Jane's left foot on some slippery mud. This treacherous substance, covered with water, could not have been anticipated; consequently Jane's emotions were those of indignation rather than of culpability. Upon rising, she debated whether or not she should return to her dwelling, inclining to the opinion that the authorities there would have taken the affirmative; but as she was wet not much above the waist, and the guilt lay all upon the mud, she decided that such an interruption of her journey would be a gross injustice to herself. Navigation was reopened.

Presently the boat wandered into a miniature whirlpool, grooved in a spiral and pleasant to see. Slowly the water went round and round, and so did the boat without any assistance from Jane. Watching this movement thoughtfully, she brought forth from her drenched pocket some sodden whitish disks, recognizable as having been crackers, and began to eat them. Thus absorbed, she failed at first to notice the approach of two young people along the sidewalk.

They were the entranced William and Miss Pratt; and their appearance offered a suggestive contrast in relative humidity. In charming and tender-colored fabrics, fluffy and cool and summery, she was specklessly dry; not a drop had touched even the little pink parasol over her shoulder, not one had fallen upon the tiny white doglet drowsing upon her arm. But William was wet—he was still more than merely damp, though they had evidently walked some distance since the rain had ceased to fall. His new hat was a mucilaginous ruin; his dank coat sagged; his shapeless trousers flopped heavily, and his shoes gave forth marshy sounds as he walked.

No brilliant analyst was needed to diagnose this case. Surely any observer must have said: “Here is a dry young lady, and at her side walks a wet young gentleman who carries an umbrella in one hand and a walking-stick in the other. Obviously the young lady and gentleman were out for a stroll for which the stick was sufficient, and they were caught by the rain. Before any fell, however, he found her a place of shelter—such as a corner drug-store and then himself gallantly went forth into the storm for an umbrella. He went to the young lady's house, or to the house where she may be visiting, for, if he had gone to his own he would have left his stick. It may be, too, that at his own, his mother would have detained him, since he is still at the age when it is just possible sometimes for mothers to get their sons into the house when it rains. He returned with the umbrella to the corner drug-store at probably about the time when the rain ceased to fall, because his extreme moistness makes necessary the deduction that he was out in all the rain that rained. But he does not seem to care.”

The fact was that William did not even know that he was wet. With his head sidewise and his entranced eyes continuously upon the pretty face so near, his state was almost somnambulistic. Not conscious of his soggy garments or of the deluged streets, he floated upon a rosy cloud, incense about him, far-away music enchanting his ears.

If Jane had not recognized the modeling of his features she might not have known them to be William's, for they had altered their grouping to produce an expression with which she was totally unfamiliar. To be explicit, she was unfamiliar with this expression in that place—that is to say, upon William, though she had seen something like it upon other people, once or twice, in church.

William's thoughts might have seemed to her as queer as his expression, could she have known them. They were not very definite, however, taking the form of sweet, vague pictures of the future. These pictures were of married life; that is, married life as William conceived it for himself and Miss Pratt—something strikingly different from that he had observed as led by his mother and father, or their friends and relatives. In his rapt mind he beheld Miss Pratt walking beside him “through life,” with her little parasol and her little dog—her exquisite face always lifted playfully toward his own (with admiration underneath the playfulness), and he heard her voice of silver always rippling “baby-talk” throughout all the years to come. He saw her applauding his triumphs—though these remained indefinite in his mind, and he was unable to foreshadow the business or profession which was to provide the amazing mansion (mainly conservatory) which he pictured as their home. Surrounded by flowers, and maintaining a private orchestra, he saw Miss Pratt and himself growing old together, attaining to such ages as thirty and even thirty-five, still in perfect harmony, and always either dancing in the evenings or strolling hand in hand in the moonlight. Sometimes they would visit the nursery, where curly-headed, rosy cherubs played upon a white-bear rug in the firelight. These were all boys and ready-made, the youngest being three years old and without a past.

They would be beautiful children, happy with their luxurious toys on the bear rug, and they would NEVER be seen in any part of the house except the nursery. Their deportment would be flawless, and—

“WILL-EE!”

The aviator struck a hole in the air; his heart misgave him. Then he came to earth—a sickening drop, and instantaneous.

“WILL-EE!”

There was Jane, a figurine in a plastic state and altogether disgraceful;—she came up out of the waters and stood before them with feet of clay, indeed; pedestaled upon the curbstone.

“Who IS that CURIOUS child?” said Miss Pratt, stopping.

William shuddered.

“Was she calling YOU?” Miss Pratt asked, incredulously.

“Willie, I told you you better take an umbereller,” said Jane, “instead of papa's cane.” And she added, triumphantly, “Now you see!”

Moving forward, she seemed to have in mind a dreadful purpose; there was something about her that made William think she intended casually to accompany him and Miss Pratt.

“You go home!” he commanded, hoarsely.

Miss Pratt uttered a little scream of surprise and recognition. “It's your little sister!” she exclaimed, and then, reverting to her favorite playfulness of enunciation, “'Oor ickle sissa!” she added, gaily, as a translation. Jane misunderstood it; she thought Miss Pratt meant “OUR little sister.”

“Go home!” said William.

“No'ty, no'ty!” said Miss Pratt, shaking her head. “Me 'fraid oo's a no'ty, no'ty ickle dirl! All datie!”

Jane advanced. “I wish you'd let me carry Flopit for you,” she said.

Giving forth another gentle scream, Miss Pratt hopped prettily backward from Jane's extended hands. “Oo-oo!” she cried, chidingly. “Mustn't touch! P'eshus Flopit all soap-water-wash clean. Ickle dirly all muddy-nassy! Ickle dirly must doe home, det all soap-water-wash clean like NICE ickle sissa. Evabody will love 'oor ickle sissa den,” she concluded, turning to William. “Tell 'oor ickle sissa MUS' doe home det soap-water-wash!”

Jane stared at Miss Pratt with fixed solemnity during the delivery of these admonitions, and it was to be seen that they made an impression upon her. Her mouth slowly opened, but she spake not. An extraordinary idea had just begun to make itself at home in her mind. It was an idea which had been hovering in the neighborhood of that domain ever since William's comments upon the conversation of Mr. Genesis, in the morning.

“Go home!” repeated William, and then, as Jane stood motionless and inarticulate, transfixed by her idea, he said, almost brokenly, to his dainty companion, “I DON'T know what you'll think of my mother! To let this child—”

Miss Pratt laughed comfortingly as they started on again. “Isn't mamma's fault, foolish boy Baxter. Ickle dirlies will det datie!”

The profoundly mortified William glanced back over his shoulder, bestowing upon Jane a look in which bitterness was mingled with apprehension. But she remained where she was, and did not follow. That was a little to be thankful for, and he found some additional consolation in believing that Miss Pratt had not caught the frightful words, “papa's cane,” at the beginning of the interview. He was encouraged to this belief by her presently taking from his hand the decoration in question and examining it with tokens of pleasure. “'Oor pitty walk'-'tick,” she called it, with a tact he failed to suspect. And so he began to float upward again; glamors enveloped him and the earth fell away.

He was alone in space with Miss Pratt once more.





XVII

JANE'S THEORY

The pale end of sunset was framed in the dining-room windows, and Mr. and Mrs. Baxter and the rehabilitated Jane were at the table, when William made his belated return from the afternoon's excursion. Seating himself, he waived his mother's references to the rain, his clothes, and probable colds, and after one laden glance at Jane denoting a grievance so elaborate that he despaired of setting it forth in a formal complaint to the Powers—he fell into a state of trance. He took nourishment automatically, and roused himself but once during the meal, a pathetic encounter with his father resulting from this awakening.

“Everybody in town seemed to be on the streets, this evening, as I walked home,” Mr. Baxter remarked, addressing his wife. “I suppose there's something in the clean air after a rain that brings 'em out. I noticed one thing, though; maybe it's the way they dress nowadays, but you certainly don't see as many pretty girls on the streets as there used to be.”

William looked up absently. “I used to think that, too,” he said, with dreamy condescension, “when I was younger.”

Mr. Baxter stared.

“Well, I'll be darned!” he said.

“Papa, papa!” his wife called, reprovingly.

“When you were younger!” Mr. Baxter repeated, with considerable irritation. “How old d' you think you are?”

“I'm going on eighteen,” said William, firmly. “I know plenty of cases—cases where—” He paused, relapsing into lethargy.

“What's the matter with him?” Mr. Baxter inquired, heatedly, of his wife.

William again came to life. “I was saying that a person's age is different according to circumstances,” he explained, with dignity, if not lucidity. “You take Genesis's father. Well, he was married when he was sixteen. Then there was a case over in Iowa that lots of people know about and nobody thinks anything of. A young man over there in Iowa that's seventeen years old began shaving when he was thirteen and shaved every day for four years, and now—”

He was interrupted by his father, who was no longer able to contain himself. “And now I suppose he's got WHISKERS!” he burst forth. “There's an ambition for you! My soul!”

It was Jane who took up the tale. She had been listening with growing excitement, her eyes fixed piercingly upon William. “He's got a beard!” she cried, alluding not to her brother, but to the fabled Iowan. “I heard Willie tell ole Mr. Genesis about it.”

“It seems to lie heavily on your mind,” Mr. Baxter said to William. “I suppose you feel that in the face of such an example, your life between the ages of thirteen and seventeen has been virtually thrown away?”

William had again relapsed, but he roused himself feebly. “Sir?” he said.

“What IS the matter with him?” Mr. Baxter demanded. “Half the time lately he seems to be hibernating, and only responds by a slight twitching when poked with a stick. The other half of the time he either behaves like I-don't-know-what or talks about children growing whiskers in Iowa! Hasn't that girl left town yet?”

William was not so deep in trance that this failed to stir him. He left the table.

Mrs. Baxter looked distressed, though, as the meal was about concluded, and William had partaken of his share in spite of his dreaminess, she had no anxieties connected with his sustenance. As for Mr. Baxter, he felt a little remorse, undoubtedly, but he was also puzzled. So plain a man was he that he had no perception of the callous brutality of the words “THAT GIRL” when applied to some girls. He referred to his mystification a little later, as he sat with his evening paper in the library.

“I don't know what I said to that tetchy boy to hurt him,” he began in an apologetic tone. “I don't see that there was anything too rough for him to stand in a little sarcasm. He needn't be so sensitive on the subject of whiskers, it seems to me.”

Mrs. Baxter smiled faintly and shook her head.

It was Jane who responded. She was seated upon the floor, disporting herself mildly with her paint-box. “Papa, I know what's the matter with Willie,” she said.

“Do you?” Mr. Baxter returned. “Well, if you make it pretty short, you've got just about long enough to tell us before your bedtime.”

“I think he's married,” said Jane.

“What!” And her parents united their hilarity.

“I do think he's married,” Jane insisted, unmoved. “I think he's married with that Miss Pratt.”

“Well,” said her father, “he does seem upset, and it may be that her visit and the idea of whiskers, coming so close together, is more than mere coincidence, but I hardly think Willie is married, Jane!”

“Well, then,” she returned, thoughtfully, “he's almost married. I know that much, anyway.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Well, because! I KIND of thought he must be married, or anyways somep'm, when he talked to Mr. Genesis this mornin'. He said he knew how some people got married in Pennsylvania an' India, an' he said they were only seven or eight years old. He said so, an' I heard him; an' he said there were eleven people married that were only seventeen, an' this boy in Iowa got a full beard an' got married, too. An' he said Mr. Genesis was only sixteen when HE was married. He talked all about gettin' married when you're seventeen years old, an' he said how people thought it was the best thing could happen. So I just KNOW he's almost married!”

Mr. Baxter chuckled, and Mrs. Baxter smiled, but a shade of thoughtfulness, a remote anxiety, tell upon the face of the latter.

“You haven't any other reason, have you, Jane?” she asked.

“Yes'm,” said Jane, promptly. “An' it's a more reason than any! Miss Pratt calls you 'mamma' as if you were HER mamma. She does it when she talks to Willie.”

“Jane!”

“Yes m, I HEARD her. An' Willie said, 'I don't know what you'll think about mother.' He said, 'I don't know what you'll think about mother,' to Miss Pratt.”

Mrs. Baxter looked a little startled, and her husband frowned. Jane mistook their expressions for incredulity. “They DID, mamma,” she protested. “That's just the way they talked to each other. I heard 'em this afternoon, when Willie had papa's cane.”

“Maybe they were doing it to tease you, if you were with them,” Mr. Baxter suggested.

“I wasn't with 'em. I was sailin' my boat, an' they came along, an' first they never saw me, an' Willie looked—oh, papa, I wish you'd seen him!” Jane rose to her feet in her excitement. “His face was so funny, you never saw anything like it! He was walkin' along with it turned sideways, an' all the time he kept walkin' frontways, he kept his face sideways—like this, papa. Look, papa!” And she gave what she considered a faithful imitation of William walking with Miss Pratt. “Look, papa! This is the way Willie went. He had it sideways so's he could see Miss. Pratt, papa. An' his face was just like this. Look, papa!” She contorted her features in a terrifying manner. “Look, papa!”

“Don't, Jane!” her mother exclaimed.

“Well, I haf to show papa how Willie looked, don't I?” said Jane, relaxing. “That's just the way he looked. Well, an' then they stopped an' talked to me, an' Miss Pratt said, 'It's our little sister.'”

“Did she really?” Mrs. Baxter asked, gravely.

“Yes'm, she did. Soon as she saw who I was, she said, 'Why, it's our little sister!' Only she said it that way she talks—sort of foolish. 'It's our ittle sissy'—somep'm like that, mamma. She said it twice an' told me to go home an' get washed up. An' Miss Pratt told Willie—Miss Pratt said, 'It isn't mamma's fault Jane's so dirty,' just like that. She—”

“Are you sure she said 'our little sister'?” said Mrs. Baxter.

“Why, you can ask Willie! She said it that funny way. 'Our 'ittle sissy'; that's what she said. An' Miss Pratt said, 'Ev'rybody would love our little sister if mamma washed her in soap an' water!' You can ask Willie; that's exackly what Miss Pratt said, an' if you don't believe it you can ask HER. If you don't want to believe it, why, you can ask—”

“Hush, dear,” said Mrs. Baxter. “All this doesn't mean anything at all, especially such nonsense as Willie's thinking of being married. It's your bedtime.”

“Well, but MAMMA—”

“Was that all they said?” Mr. Baxter inquired.

Jane turned to him eagerly. “They said all lots of things like that, papa. They—”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Baxter in interrupted. “Come, it's bedtime. I'll go up with you. You mustn't think such nonsense.”

“But, mamma—”

“Come along, Jane!”

Jane was obedient in the flesh, but her spirit was free; her opinions were her own. Disappointed in the sensation she had expected to produce, she followed her mother out of the room wearing the expression of a person who says, “You'll SEE—some day when everything's ruined!”

Mr. Baxter, left alone, laughed quietly, lifted his neglected newspaper to obtain the light at the right angle, and then allowed it to languish upon his lap again. Frowning, he began to tap the floor with his shoe.

He was trying to remember what things were in his head when he was seventeen, and it was difficult. It seemed to him that he had been a steady, sensible young fellow—really quite a man—at that age. Looking backward at the blur of youthful years, the period from sixteen to twenty-five appeared to him as “pretty much all of a piece.” He could not recall just when he stopped being a boy; it must have been at about fifteen, he thought.

All at once he sat up stiffly in his chair, and the paper slid from his knee. He remembered an autumn, long ago, when he had decided to abandon the educational plans of his parents and become an actor. He had located this project exactly, for it dated from the night of his seventeenth birthday, when he saw John McCullough play “Virginius.”

Even now Mr. Baxter grew a little red as he remembered the remarkable letter he had written, a few weeks later, to the manager of a passing theatrical company. He had confidently expected an answer, and had made his plans to leave town quietly with the company and afterward reassure his parents by telegraph. In fact, he might have been on the stage at this moment, if that manager had taken him. Mr. Baxter began to look nervous.

Still, there is a difference between going on the stage and getting married. “I don't know, though!” Mr. Baxter thought. “And Willie's certainly not so well balanced in a GENERAL way as I was.” He wished his wife would come down and reassure him, though of course it was all nonsense.

But when Mrs. Baxter came down-stairs she did not reassure him. “Of course Jane's too absurd!” she said. “I don't mean that she 'made it up'; she never does that, and no doubt this little Miss Pratt did say about what Jane thought she said. But it all amounts to nothing.”

“Of course!”

“Willie's just going through what several of the other boys about his age are going through—like Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and Wallace Banks. They all seem to be frantic over her.”

“I caught a glimpse of her the day you had her to tea. She's rather pretty.”

“Adorably! And perhaps Willie has been just a LITTLE bit more frantic than the others.”

“He certainly seems in a queer state!”

At this his wife's tone became serious. “Do you think he WOULD do as crazy a thing as that?”

Mr. Baxter laughed. “Well, I don't know what he'd do it ON! I don't suppose he has more than a dollar in his possession.”

“Yes, he has,” she returned, quickly. “Day before yesterday there was a second-hand furniture man here, and I was too busy to see him, but I wanted the storeroom in the cellar cleared out, and I told Willie he could have whatever the man would pay him for the junk in there, if he'd watch to see that they didn't TAKE anything. They found some old pieces that I'd forgotten, underneath things, and altogether the man paid Willie nine dollars and eighty-five cents.”

“But, mercy-me!” exclaimed Mr. Baxter, “the girl may be an idiot, but she wouldn't run away and marry a boy just barely seventeen on nine dollars and eighty-five cents!”

“Oh no!” said Mrs. Baxter. “At least, I don't THINK so. Of course girls do as crazy things as boys sometimes—in their way. I was thinking—” She paused. “Of COURSE there couldn't be anything in it, but it did seem a little strange.”

“What did?”

“Why, just before I came down-stairs, Adelia came for the laundry; and I asked her if she'd seen Willie; and she said he'd put on his dark suit after dinner, and he went out through the kitchen, carrying his suit-case.”

“He did?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Baxter went on, slowly, “I COULDN'T believe he'd do such a thing, but he really is in a PREPOSTEROUS way over this little Miss Pratt, and he DID have that money—”

“By George!” Mr. Baxter got upon his feet. “The way he talked at dinner, I could come pretty near believing he hasn't any more brains LEFT than to get married on nine dollars and eighty-five cents! I wouldn't put it past him! By George, I wouldn't!”

“Oh, I don't think he would,” she remonstrated, feebly. “Besides, the law wouldn't permit it.”

Mr. Baxter paced the floor. “Oh, I suppose they COULD manage it. They could go to some little town and give false ages and—” He broke off. “Adelia was sure he had his suit-case?”

She nodded. “Do you think we'd better go down to the Parchers'? We'd just say we came to call, of course, and if—”

“Get your hat on,” he said. “I don't think there's anything in it at all, but we'd just as well drop down there. It can't HURT anything.”

“Of course, I don't think—” she began.

“Neither do I,” he interrupted, irascibly. “But with a boy of his age crazy enough to think he's in love, how do WE know what 'll happen? We're only his parents! Get your hat on.”

But when the uneasy couple found themselves upon the pavement before the house of the Parchers, they paused under the shade-trees in the darkness, and presently decided that it was not necessary to go in. Suddenly their uneasiness had fallen from them. From the porch came the laughter of several young voices, and then one silvery voice, which pretended to be that of a tiny child.

“Oh, s'ame! S'ame on 'oo, big Bruvva Josie-Joe! Mus' be polite to Johnny Jump-up, or tant play wiv May and Lola!”

“That's Miss Pratt,” whispered Mrs. Baxter. “She's talking to Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and May Parcher. Let's go home; it's all right. Of course I knew it would be.”

“Why, certainly,” said Mr. Baxter, as they turned. “Even if Willie were as crazy as that, the little girl would have more sense. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, if you hadn't told me about the suit-case. That looked sort of queer.”

She agreed that it did, but immediately added that she had thought nothing of it. What had seemed more significant to her was William's interest in the early marriage of Genesis's father, and in the Iowa beard story, she said. Then she said that it WAS curious about the suit-case.

And when they came to their own house again, there was William sitting alone and silent upon the steps of the porch.

“I thought you'd gone out, Willie,” said his mother, as they paused beside him.

“Ma'am?”

“Adelia said you went out, carrying your suit-case.”

“Oh yes,” he said, languidly. “If you leave clothes at Schwartz's in the evening they have 'em pressed in the morning. You said I looked damp at dinner, so I took 'em over and left 'em there.”

“I see.” Mrs. Baxter followed her husband to the door, but she stopped on the threshold and called back:

“Don't sit there too long, Willie.”

“Ma'am?”

“The dew is falling and it rained so hard to-day—I'm afraid it might be damp.”

“Ma'am?”

“Come on,” Mr. Baxter said to his wife. “He's down on the Parchers' porch, not out in front here. Of course he can't hear you. It's three blocks and a half.”

But William's father was mistaken. Little he knew! William was not upon the porch of the Parchers, with May Parcher and Joe Bullitt and Johnnie Watson to interfere. He was far from there, in a land where time was not. Upon a planet floating in pink mist, and uninhabited—unless old Mr. Genesis and some Hindoo princes and the diligent Iowan may have established themselves in its remoter regions—William was alone with Miss Pratt, in the conservatory. And, after a time, they went together, and looked into the door of a room where an indefinite number of little boys—all over three years of age—were playing in the firelight upon a white-bear rug. For, in the roseate gossamer that boys' dreams are made of, William had indeed entered the married state.

His condition was growing worse, every day.

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