 16 With a proud air she crushingly departed, returning to her own home far from dissatisfied with what she had accomplished. Moreover, she began to expand with the realization of a new importance, and she was gratified with the effect upon her parents at dinner that evening when she informed them that she had written a poem which was to be published in the prospective first number of the North End Daily Oriole. "'Written a poem?' said her father. "'Well, I declare. Why, that's remarkable, Florence.' "'I'm glad the boys were nice about it,' said her mother. "'I should have feared they couldn't appreciate it after being so cross to you about letting you have anything to do with the printing press. They must have thought it was a very good poem.' "'Where is the poem, Florence?' Mr. Atwater asked. "'Let's read it, and see what our little girl can do when she really tries.' Unfortunately Florence had not a copy, and when she informed her father of this fact he professed himself greatly disappointed, as well as eager for the first appearance of the Oriole, that he might felicitate himself upon the evidence of his daughter's here to fore unsuspected talent. Florence was herself anxious for the newspaper's debut, and she made her anxiety so clear to Atwater and Reuter, owners and proprietors, every afternoon after school, during the following week that by Thursday further argument and repartee on their part were felt to be, indeed, futile, and in order to have a little piece around there they carried her downstairs, at least they defined their action as carrying, and, having deposited her in the yard, they were obliged to stand guard at the doors, which they closed and contrived to hold against her until her strength was worn out for that day. Florence consoled herself. During the week she dropped in on all the members of the family, her grandfather, uncles and aunts and cousins, her great aunts and great uncles, and in each instance, after no protracted formal preliminaries, lightly remarked that she wrote poetry now, her first to appear in the forthcoming Oriole, and when great aunt Carrie said, Why Florence, you're wonderful, I couldn't write a poem to save my life, I never could see how they'd do it. Florence laughed, made a deprecatory little side motion with her head, and responded, Why Aunt Carrie, that's nothing, it just kind of comes to you. This also served as her explanation when some of her school friends expressed their admiration after being told the news in confidence. Though to one of the teachers she said, smiling roofily, as in remembrance of midnight oil, it does take work, of course. An opportunity offered upon the street she joined people she knew, or even rather distant acquaintances, to talk with them a little way, and lead the conversation to the subject of poetry, including her own contribution to that art. All together, if Florence was not in a fair way to become a poetic celebrity, it was not her own fault, but entirely that of the North End Daily Oriole, which was to make its appearance on Saturday, but failed to do so on account of too much enthusiasm on the part of Atwater and Rooter in manipulating the printing press. It broke, had to be repaired, and Florence, her nerves upset by the accident, demanded her money back. This was impossible, and the postponement proved to be but an episode. Moreover, it gave her time to let more people know of the treat that was coming. Among these was Noble Dill, until the Friday following her disappointment. She had found no opportunity to acquaint her very ideal with the news, and but for an encounter partly due to chance he might not have heard of it. A sentimental enrichment of color in her cheeks was the result of her catching sight of him, as she was on the point of opening and entering her own front door, that afternoon on her return from school. He was passing the house, walking somewhat dreamily. Florence stepped into the sheltering vestibule, peeping round it with earnest eyes to watch him as he went by. Obviously he had taken no note of her. Satisfied of this, she waited until he was at a little distance, then ran lightly down to the gate, hurried after him, and joined him. Why, Mr. Dill, she exclaimed, in her mother's most polished manner, how surprising to see you. I presume, as we both happen to be walking the same direction, we might just as well keep together. Surprising to see me? Noble said vaguely. I haven't been away anywhere in particular, Florence. Then, at a thought, he brightened. I'm glad to see you, Florence. Do you know if any of your family or relatives have heard when your Aunt Julia is coming home? Aunt Julia, she's out of town, said Florence. She's visiting different people she used to know when she was away at school. Yes, I know, Mr. Dill returned, but she's been gone six weeks. Oh, I don't believe it's that long, Florence said casually, then with more earnestness. Mr. Dill, I was going to ask you something. It's kind of a funny question for me to ask, but yes, she has. Noble interrupted, not aware that his remark was an interruption. Oh, yes, she has, he said. It was six weeks day before yesterday afternoon. I saw your father downtown this morning, and he said he didn't know that any of the family had heard just when she was coming home. I thought maybe some of your relatives had a letter from her by this afternoon's mail, perhaps. I guess not, said Florence. Mr. Dill, there was a question I thought I'd ask you. It's kind of a funny question for me. Are you sure nobody's heard from your Aunt Julia today? Noble insisted. I guess they haven't. Mr. Dill, I was going to ask you. It's strange, he murmured. I don't see how people can enjoy visits that long. I should think they'd get anxious about what might happen at home. Oh, grandpa's all right. He says he kind of likes to have the house nice and quiet to himself. And anyway, Aunt Julia enjoys visiting. Florence assured him. Aunt Fanny saw a newspaper from one of the places where Aunt Julia's visiting her school roommate. It had her picture on it, and called her the famous Northern Beauty. It was down south somewhere. Well, Mr. Dill, I was just saying, I believe I'd ask you. But a sectional rancor seemed all at once to affect the young man. Oh, yes, I heard about that, he said. Your Aunt Fanny lent my mother the newspaper. Those people in that part of the country well. He paused, remembering that it was only Florence he addressed, and he withheld from utterance his opinion that the Civil War ought to be fought all over again. Your father said your grandfather hadn't heard from her for several days, and even then she hadn't said when she was coming home. No, I expect she didn't, said Florence. Mr. Dill, I was going to ask you something. It's kind of a queer kind of question for me to ask, I guess. She paused. However, he did not interrupt her, seeming preoccupied with gloom, whereupon Florence permitted herself a deprecatory laugh, and continued, It might be you'd answer, yes, or it might be you'd answer, no, but anyway, I was going to ask you. It's kind of a funny question for me to ask, I expect. But do you like poetry? What? Well, as things have turned out lately, I guess it's kind of a funny question, Mr. Dill. But do you like poetry? Noble's expression took on a coldness, for the word brought to his mind a thought of Newland Sanders. Do I like poetry? said Noble. No, I don't. Florence was momentarily discouraged, but at her age people usually possess an invaluable faculty, which they lose later in life, and it is a pity that they do lose it. At thirteen, especially the earlier months of thirteen, they are still able to set aside and dismiss from their minds almost any facts, no matter how audibly those facts have asked for recognition. Children superbly allow themselves to become deaf, so to speak, to undesirable circumstances, most frequently, of course, to undesirable circumstances in the way of parental direction, so that fathers, mothers, nurses, or governesses, not comprehending that this mental deafness is, for the time being, entirely genuine, are liable to hoarseness both of throat and temper. Thirteen is an age when the fading of this gift or talent, one of the most beautiful of childhood, begins to impair its helpfulness under the mistaken stress of discipline, but Florence retained something of it. In a moment or two, Noble Dill's dissatisfaction toward poetry was altogether as if it did not exist. She coughed and climbed her head a little to one side, in her mother's manner of politeness to callers, and, repeating her deprecatory laugh, remarked, Well, of course, it's kind of a funny question for me to ask, of course. What is it, Florence? Noble inquired absently. Well, what I was saying was that, of course, it sort of queer me asking if you like poetry, of course, on account of my writing poetry, the way I do now. She looked up at him with a bright readiness to respond modestly to whatever exclamation his wonder should dictate, but Noble's attention had straggled again. Has she written your mother lately? He asked. Florence's expression denoted a mental condition slightly disturbed. No, she said. It's going to be printed in the North End Daily Oreo. What? My poem. It's about a vast amen. Anyhow, that's probably the best thing in it, I guess, and they're going to have it out tomorrow, or else they'll have to settle with me. That's one thing certain. I'll bring one over to your house and leave it at the door for you, Mr. Dill. Noble had but a confused notion of what she thus generously promised. However, he said, thank you, and nodded vaguely. Of course, I don't know as it's so awful good. Florence admitted insincerely. The family all seemed to think it's something pretty much, but I don't know if it is or not. Really, I don't. No, said Noble, still confused. I suppose not. I'm half-way through another one. I think myself will be a good deal better. I'm not going as fast with it as I did with the other one, and I expect it'll be quite a ways ahead of this one. She again employed the deprecatory little laugh. I don't know how I do it myself. The family all thinks it's sort of funny. I don't know how I do it myself, but that's the way it is. They all say if they could do it, they're sure they'd know how they did it. But I guess they're wrong. I presume if you can do it, why, it just comes to you. Don't you presume that's the way it is, Mr. Dill? I guess so. They had reached his gate, and he stopped. You're sure none of your family have heard anything today? He asked anxiously. From Aunt Julia? I don't think they have. He sighed and opened the gate. Well, good evening, Florence. Good evening. Her eyes followed him wistfully as he passed within the enclosure. Then she turned and walked quickly toward her own home. But at the corner of the next fence she called back over her shoulder. I'll leave it with your mother for you, if you're not home, when I bring it. What! he shouted from his front door. I'll leave it with your mother! Leave what? The poem! Oh! said Noble. Thanks. But when his mother handed him a copy of the first issue of the North End Daily Oriole the next day, when he came home to lunch, he read it without edification. There was nothing about Julia in it. The North End Daily Oriole. Atwater and Router. Owners and Proprietors. Right now, twenty-five cents per year. Subscriptions should be brought to the East Ettrance of Atwater and Router Newspaper Building every afternoon, four thirty to six twenty-five cents. News of the City. The candidates for mayor at the election are Mr. P. N. Gordon and John T. Milo. The contest is very great between these candidates. Malcolm's chickens get in Mr. Joseph Atwater's yard, a God deal lately. He says chickens are out of place in a city of this size. Many the cook of Mr. F. L. Smith's residence goes downtown every Thursday after about three, her regular day for it. A new ditch is being dug across the Mr. Henry D. Vance backerad. It is about dug, but nobody is working there now. Patty Fairchild received the highest mark in declamation of the 7A at Sumner School last Friday. Balfe Gorsy, wagon, ran over a cat of the Mr. Rayfort family. Gio, the driver of the wagon, stated he had not, but was willing to take it away and burg it somewheres. Gio stated regret and claimed nothing but an accident which could not be helped and not his team that did the damage. Miss Cuffield, teacher of the 7A at Sumner School, was reprotted on the Sinklist. We hope she will soon be well. There were several deaths in the city this week. Mr. Fairchild, father of Patty Fairchild, was on the Sinklist several days and did not go to his office, but is out now. Ben Crisso, the chauffeur of the Mr. R. G. Atwater family, washed their car on Monday. In using the hose he turned water over the fence accidentally and hit Lonnie, the washwoman, in back of Mrs. Bruffs, who called him some low names. Ben told her if he had have been a man he rode, strike her, but soon the discrepancy was at an end. There is a good deal more of other news which will be printed in our next no. Advertisements and poems, twenty cents each, up. Joseph K. Atwater and Company. 127th South Iowa Street. Steam pumps. The Organ Step by Florence Atwater. The Organ Step was seated at his organ in some beautiful words of vagal and breer, but he was a great organ step and always, when the soil is weary and the mind is drear qu. I would play music like a vast amen, the way it sounds in a church of new. Subscribe now, twenty-five cents, Adva and Poetry, twenty cents up. Atwater and Reuter, newspaper, buildings, twenty-five cents per year. Such was the first issue, complete of the North End Daily Oriole. What had happened to the poem was due partly to Atwater and Reuter's natural lack of experience in a new and exacting trade, partly to their enviable unconsciousness of any necessity for proofreading, and somewhat to their haste in getting through the final and least interesting stage of their undertaking. For, of course, so far as the printers were concerned, the poem was mere hack-work anti-climax, and as they later declared under fire, anybody that could make out more than three words in five of Florence's old handwriting was welcome to do it. Besides, what did it matter if a little bit was left out at the end of one or two of the lines? They couldn't be expected to run the lines out over their margin, could they? And they never knew anything crazier than making all this fuss, because, well, what if some of it wasn't printed just exactly right, who in the world was going to notice it, and what was the difference of just a few words different in that old poem anyhow? For by the time these explanations, so to call them, took place, Florence was indeed making a fuss. Her emotion, at first, had been happily stimulated at sight of by Florence Atwater. A singular tenderness had risen in her, a tremulous sense as of something almost sacred coming at last into its own, and she hurried to distribute gratis among relatives and friends several copies of the Oriole, paying for them too, though not without injurious argument, at the rate of two cents a copy. But upon returning to her own home she became calm enough, for a moment or so, to look over the poem with attention to details. She returned hastily to the newspaper building, but would have been wiser to remain away since all subscribers had received their copies by the time she got there, and under the circumstances little reparation was practicable. She ended her oration, or professed to end it, by declaring that she would never have another poem in their old, vile newspaper as long as she lived. You're right about that, Henry Roder agreed heartily. We wouldn't let another one in it. Not for fifty dollars. Just look at all the trouble we took, moiling and toiling to get your old poem printed as nice as we could, so it wouldn't ruin our newspaper, and then you come over here and go on like this and all this and that. Why, I wouldn't go through it again for a hundred dollars. We're making good money anyhow with our newspaper, Florence Atwater. You needn't think we depend on you for our living. That's so, his partner declared. We knew you wouldn't be satisfied anyway, Florence. Didn't we, Henry? I should say we did. Yes, sir, said Herbert, right when we were having the worst time trying to print it and make out some of the words. I said right then, we were just throwing away our time. I said, what's the use? That old girl's bound to raise Cain anyhow, so what's the use? Waste on a whole lot of our good time and brains like this. Just to suit her. Whatever we do, she's certain to come over and insult us. Isn't that what I said, Henry? Yes, it is. And I said then, you were right, and you are right. Certainly, I am, said Herbert. Didn't I tell you she'd be just the way some of the families say she is? A good many of them say she'd find fault with the undertaker at her own funeral. That's just exactly what I said. Oh, you did! Florence belast a polite interest. How very considerate of you! Then perhaps you'll try to be a gentleman enough, for one simple moment, to allow me to tell you my last remarks on this subject. I've said enough. Oh, have you! Herbert interrupted with violent sarcasm. Oh, no! Say not so, Florence! Say not so! At this, Henry Ruder, loudly shouted with applause of hilarity, whereupon Herbert rather surprised that his own effectiveness naturally repeated his waggery. Say not so, Florence! Say not so! Say not so! I'll tell you one thing, his lady cousin cried, thoroughly infuriated. I wish to make just one last simple remark that I would care to soil myself within your respects, Mr. Herbert Ellingsworth Atwater and Mr. Henry Ruder. Oh, say not so, Florence! They both entreated. Say not so! Say not so! I'll just simply state the simple truth, Florence announced. In the first place, you're going to live to see the day when you'll come and beg me, on your bended knees, to have me put poems or anything I want to in your old newspaper. But I'll just laugh at you. Indeed, I'll say. So you come begging around me, do you? Ha-ha! I'll say. I guess it's a little too late for that. Why, I wouldn't. Oh, say not so, Florence! Say not so! Me, to allow you to have one of my poems, I'll say. Much less than that, I'll say. Because even if I was wearing the oldest shoes I got in the world, I wouldn't take the trouble to—her conclusion was drowned out. Oh, Florence, say not so! Say not so, Florence! Say not so! End of Chapter 16 CHAPTER XVII OF GENTLE JULIA by Booth Tarkington The hateful entreaties still murmured in her resentful ears that night as she fell asleep, and she passed into the beginnings of a dream with her lips slightly dimpling the surface of her pillow in belated repartee. And upon waking, though it was Sunday, her first words, half slumbrous in the silence of the morning, were vile things. Her faculties became more alert during the preparation of a toilet that was to serve not only for breakfast, but with the addition of gloves, a hat, and a blue velvet coat, for church and Sunday school as well. And she planned a hundred vengences. That is to say, her mind did not occupy itself with plots possible to make real, but rather it dabbled among those fragmentary visions that loved to overlap and displace one another upon the changeful retina of the mind's eye. In all of these pictures, wherein prevailingly she seemed to be some sort of deathly powerful queen of poetry, the postures assumed by the figures of misters Atwater and Ruder, both in an extremity of rags, were miserably suppliant. So she soothed herself a little, but not long. Herbert in the next pew and church, and Henry in the next beyond that, were perfect compositions in smugness. They were cold, contented, aristocratic, and had an impeturbable understanding between themselves, even then perceptible to the sensitive Florence, that she was a nuisance now capably disposed of by their beautiful discovery of, say not so, Florence's feelings were unbecoming to the place and occasion. But at four o'clock that afternoon she was asswaged into a milder condition by the arrival, according to an agreement made in Sunday School, of the popular Miss Patty Fairchild. Patty was thirteen-and-a-half, an exquisite person with gold-dusted hair, eyes of singing blue, and an alluring air of sweet self-consciousness. Henry Ruder and Herbert Ellingsworth Atwater, Jr., out gathering news, saw her entering Florence's gate and immediately forgot that they were reporters. They became silent, gradually moving toward the house of their newspaper's sole poetess. Florence and Patty occupied themselves indoors for half an hour, then went out in the yard to study a moles' tunnel that had interested Florence recently. They followed it across the lawn at the south side of the house, discussing the habits of moles and other matters of zoology, and finally lost the track near the fence, which was here the side fence, and higher than their heads. Patty looked through a knot hole to see if the tunnel was visible in the next yard, but without reporting upon her observations she turned, as if carelessly, and leaned back against the fence, covering the knot hole. Florence, she said, in a tone softer than she had been using heretofore, Florence, do you know what I think? No. Could you see any more tracks over there? Florence, said Patty, I was just going to tell you something, only maybe a better knot. Why not? Florence inquired. Go on, and tell me. No, said Patty, gently. You might think it was silly. No, I won't. Yes, you might. I promise I won't. Well, then, oh, Florence, I'm sure you'll think it's silly. I promised I wouldn't. Well, I don't think I'd better say it. Go on, Florence urged. Patty, you got to. Well, then, if I got to, said Patty, what I was going to say, Florence, don't you think your cousin Herbert and Henry Router have got the nicest eyes of any boy in town? Who? Florence was astounded. I do, Patty said in her charming voice. I think Herbert and Henry have got the nicest eyes of any boy in town. You do? Florence cried incredulously. Yes, I really do, Florence. I think Herbert Atwater and Henry Router have got the nicest eyes of any boy in town. Well, I never heard anything like this before, Florence declared. But don't you think they've got the nicest eyes of any boy in town? Patty insisted, appealingly. I think, said Florence, their eyes are just horrible. What? Herbert's eyes, continued Florence ardently, are the very worst-looking old, squinty eyes I ever saw, and that nasty little Henry Router's eyes. But Patty had suddenly become fidgety. She hurried away from the fence. Come over here, Florence. She said, let's go over to the other side of the yard and talk. It was time for her to take some such action. Mistress Atwater and Router seated quietly together upon a box on the other side of the fence, though with their backs to the knot-hole, were beginning to show signs of inward disturbance. Already flushed with the unexpected ineffabilities overheard, their complexions had grown even pinker upon Florence's open-hearted expressions of opinion. Slowly they turned their heads to look at the fence, upon the other side of which stood the maliner of their eyes. Not that they cared what that old girl thought, but she oughtn't to be allowed to go around talking like this, and perhaps prejudicing everybody that had a kind word to say for them. Come over here, Florence, called Patty huskily, from the other side of the yard. Let's talk here. Florence was puzzled, but consented. What do you want to talk over here for? She asked as she came near her friend. Oh, I don't know, said Patty. Let's go out in the front yard. She led the way round the house, and a moment later uttered a cry of surprise as the firm of Atwater and Router passing along the pavement hesitated at the gate. Their celebrated eyes showed doubt for a moment. Then a brazenness. Herbert and Henry decided to come in. Isn't this the funniest thing? cried Patty. After what I just said a while ago, you know, Florence, don't you dare to tell them. I certainly won't, her host has promised, and, turning inhospitably to the two callers, what on earth you want round here? She inquired. Herbert, chivalrously, took upon himself the duty of response. Look here. This is my own aunt and uncle's yard, isn't it? I guess if I want to come in it, I got a perfect right to. I should say so. His partner said warmly. Why, of course, the cordial Patty agreed, we can play some nice Sunday games or something. Let's sit on the porch steps and think what to do. I just as soon, said Henry Router, I got nothing particular to do. I haven't either, said Herbert. Thereupon Patty sat between them on the steps. This is perfectly grand, she cried. Come on, Florence, aren't you going to sit down with all the rest of us? Well, pray kindly excuse me, said Miss Atwater, and she added that she would neither sit on the same steps with Herbert Atwater and Henry Router, nor, even if they entreated her with accompanying genuine flections, would she have anything else whatever to do with them? She concluded, with a reference to the oldest pair of shoes she might ever come to possess, and withdrew to the railing of the veranda at a point farthest from the steps, and seated there, swinging one foot rhythmically, she sang hymns in a tone at once plaintive and inimical. It was not lost upon her, however, that her withdrawal had little effect upon her guests. They chattered gaily, and Patty devised, or remembered, harmless little games that could be played by a few people, as well as by many, and the three participants were so congenial and noisy, and made so merry that before long Florence was unable to avoid the impression that whether she liked it or not she was giving quite a party. At times the noted eyes of Atwater and Router were gentle or with the soft cast of enchantment, especially when Patty felt called upon to reprove the two with little coquettries of slaps and pushes. Noted for her sprightliness she was never sprightlier, her pretty laughter tooted continuously, and the gentleman accompanied it with doting sound so repulsive to Florence that without being actively conscious of what she did she embodied the phrase perfectly sickening. In the hymn she was crooning and repeated it over and over to the air of rock of ages. Now I tell you what let's play, the versatile Patty proposed, after exhausting the pleasures of geography, ghosts, and other tests of intellect. Let's play Truth. We'll each take a piece of paper and a pencil, and then each of us ask the other one some question, and we have to write down the answer and sign your name and fold it up so nobody can see it except the one that asked the question, and we have to keep it a secret and never tell as long as we live. All right, said Henry Router. I'll be the one to ask you a question, Patty. No, Herbert said promptly. I ought to be the one to ask Patty. Why ought you? Henry demanded. Why ought you? Listen, Patty cried. I know the way we'll do. I'll ask each of you a question. We have to whisper it, and each one of you ask me one, and then we'll write it. That'll be simply grand. She clapped her hands, then checked herself. Oh, I guess we can't either. We haven't got any paper and pencils unless. Here, she seemed to recall her hostess. Oh, Flory, dear, run in the house and get us some paper and pencils. Florence gave no sign other than to increase the volume of her voice as she sang. Perfectly sickening, cleft for me. Let me perfectly sickening, sickening. We got plenty, said Herbert, whereupon he and Henry produced pencils and their professional notebooks, and supplied their fair friend and themselves with material for truth. Come on, Patty, whisper me whatever you want to. No, I ought to have her whisper me first, Henry wrote her objected. I'll write the answer to any question. I don't care what it's about. Well, it's got to be the truth, you know, Patty warned him. We all have to write down just exactly the truth on our word of honor and sign our name. Promise? They promised, earnestly. All right, said Patty, now I'll whisper Henry a question first, and then you can whisper yours to me first, Herbert. This seemed to fill all needs happily, and the whispering and writing began, and continued with a coziness little to the taste of the piously singing Florence. She altered all previous opinions of her friend Patty, and when the latter finally closed the session on the steps, and announced that she must go home, the hostess declined to accompany her into the house to help her find where she had left her hat and wrap. I haven't the least idea where I took him off, Patty declared in the aroused manner. If you won't come with me, Florie, suppose you just call in the front door and tell your mother to get him for me. Oh, there's somewhere in there, Florence said coldly, not ceasing to swing her foot and not turning her head. You can find her by yourself, I presume, or if you can't, I'll have our maid throw him out in the yard or something to-morrow. Well, thank you, Miss Fairchild rejoined as she entered the house. The two boys stood waiting, having in mind to go with Patty as far as her own gate. That's a pretty way to speak to company. Herbert addressed his cousin with heavily marked severity. Next time you do anything like that, I'll march straight in the house and inform your mother of the fact. Florence still swung her foot and looked dreamily away. She sang to the air of rock of ages. Henry root her herbertude. They make me sick, they make me sick, that's what they do. However, they were only too well prepared with their annihilating response. Oh, say not so, Florence, say not so, Florence, say not so! They even sent the same odious refrain back to her from the street, as they departed with their lovely companion. And so tenuous is feminine loyalty sometimes under these dresses. Miss Fairchild mingled her sweet, tantalizing young soprano with their changing and cackling falsetto. Say not so, Florence! Oh, say not so, say not so! End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of Gentle Julia by Booth Tarkington This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, reading by Bologna Times. They went satirically down the street, their chumminess with one another bountifully increased by their common derision of the outsider on the porch. And even at a distance they still contrived to make themselves intolerable, looking back over their shoulders at intervals with say not so expressions on their faces. Even when these faces were far enough away to be but yellowish oval planes, their say not so expressions were still bitingly eloquent. Now a northern breeze chilled the air, as the hateful three became indistinguishable in the haze of autumn dust, whereupon Florence stopped swinging her foot, left the railing, and went morosely into the house. And here it was her fortune to make two discoveries vital to her present career, the first arising out of a conversation between her father and mother in the library, where a gossipy fire of soft coal encouraged this proper Sunday afternoon entertainment for man and wife. Sit down and rest, Florence, said her mother. I'm afraid you play too hard when Patty and the boys are here. Do sit quietly and rest yourself a while. And as Florence obeyed, Mrs. Atwater turned to her husband, resuming. Well, that's what I said. I told Aunt Carrie. I thought the same way about it that you did. Of course, nobody ever knows what Julie is going to do next, and nobody needs to be surprised at anything she does do. Ever since she came home from school, about four-fifths of all the young men in town have been wild about her, and so's every old bachelor for the matter of that. Yes, Mr. Atwater added, and every old widower too. His wife warmly accepted the amendment, and every old widower too, she said, nodding, rather. And, of course, Julie is just done exactly as she pleased about everything, and naturally she's going to do as she pleases about this. Well, of course, it's her own affair, Molly, Mr. Atwater said wildly. She couldn't be expected to consult the whole Atwater family connection before she… Oh, no, she agreed. I don't say she could. Still, it is rather upsetting, coming so suddenly like this, when not one of the family has ever seen him, never even heard his very name before. Well, that part of it isn't especially strange, Molly. He was born and brought up in a town three hundred miles from here. I don't see just how we could have heard his name, unless he visited here, or got into the papers in some way. Mrs. Atwater seemed unwilling to yield a mysterious point. She rocked decorously in her rocking chair, shook her head, and after setting her lips rigidly, opened them to insist that she could never change her mind. Julia had acted very abruptly. Why couldn't she have let her poor father know at least a few days before she did? Mr. Atwater sighed. Why, she explains in her letter that she only knew it herself an hour before she wrote. Her poor father, his wife repeated commiseratingly. Why, Molly, I don't see how father is especially to be pitied. Don't you, said Mrs. Atwater, that old man to have to live in that big house all alone, except a few Negro servants. Why, no, about half the houses in the neighborhood, up and down the street, are fully occupied by close relatives of his. I doubt if he'll be really as lonely as he'd like to be. And he's often said he'd give a great deal if Julia had been a plain unpopular girl. I'm strongly of the opinion, myself, that he'll be pleased about this. Of course it may upset him a little at first. Yes, I think it will, Mrs. Atwater shook her head forebodingly, and he isn't the only one it's going to upset. No, he isn't, her husband admitted seriously. That's always been the trouble with Julia. She never could bear to seem disappointing. And so, of course, I suppose every one of them has a special idea that he's really about the top of the list with her. Every last one of them is positive of it, said Mrs. Atwater. That was Julia's way with him. Yes, Julia's always been much too kind-hearted for other people's good. Thus Mr. Atwater summed up Julia, and he was her brother. Additionally, since he was the older, he had known her since her birth. If you ask me, said his wife, I'll really be surprised if it all goes through without a suicide. Oh, not quite suicide, perhaps. Mr. Atwater protested. I'm glad it's a fairly dry town, though. She failed to fathom his simple meaning. Why? Well, some of them might feel that desperate at least, he explained. Prohibitions are safe, but I don't know what to do with it. Prohibitions are safeguarded for the disappointed in love. This phrase and a previous one stirred Florence, who had been sitting quietly, according to a request, and resting, but not resting her curiosity. Who's disappointed in love, Papa? She inquired with an explosive eagerness that slightly startled her preoccupied parents. What is all this about Aunt Julia and Grandpa going to live alone, and people committing suicide and prohibition and everything? What is all this, Mama? Nothing, Florence. Nothing? That's what you always say about the very most interesting things that happen in the whole family. What is all this, Papa? It's nothing that would be interesting to little girls, Florence. Merely some family matters. My goodness, Florence exclaimed. I'm not a little girl any more, Papa. You're always forgetting my age. And if it's a family matter, I belong to the family, I guess. About as much as anybody else, don't I? Grandpa himself isn't any more one of the family than I am. I don't care how old he is. This was undeniable, and her father laughed. Oh, it's really nothing you'd care about one way or the other, he said. Well, I'd care about it if it's a secret, Florence insisted. If it's a secret, I'd want to know about it, whatever it's about. Oh, it isn't a secret, particularly, I suppose. At least it's not to be made public for a time. It's only to be known in the family. Well, didn't I just prove I'm as much one of the family as never mind, her father said soothingly. I don't suppose there's any harm in your knowing it, if you won't go telling everybody. Your Aunt Julia has just written us that she's engaged. Mrs. Atwater uttered an exclamation, but she was too late to check him. I'm afraid you oughtn't to have told Florence she isn't just the most discreet. Pshaw! he laughed. She certainly is one of the family, however, and Julia wrote that all of the family might be told, you'll not speak of it outside the family, will you, Florence? But Florence was not yet able to speak of it, even inside the family. So surprising. Sometimes are parents theories of what will not interest their children. She sat staring, her mouth open, and in the uncertain illumination of the room, these symptoms of her emotional condition went unobserved. I say you won't speak of Julia's engagement outside the family, will you, Florence? Papa! she gasped. Did Aunt Julia write she was engaged? Yes. To get married! It would seem so. To who? To whom, Florence? Her mother suggested permanently. Mama! The daughter cried. Whose Aunt Julia engaged to get married to? Noble Dill? Good gracious no! Mrs. Atwater exclaimed. What an absurd idea! It's to a young man in the place she's visiting, a stranger to all of us. Julia only met him a few weeks ago. Here she forgot Florence, and turned again to her husband, wearing her former expression of experienced foreboding. It's just, as I said, it's exactly like Julia to do such a reckless thing. But as we don't know anything at all about the young man, he remonstrated, how do you know it's reckless? How do you know he's young, Mrs. Atwater retorted crisply? All in the world she said about him was that he's a lawyer. He may be a widower, for all we know, or divorced, with seven or eight children. Oh, no, Molly. Why, he might, she insisted. For all we know he may be a widower for the third or fourth time, or divorced, with any number of children. If such a person proposed to Julia, you know yourself she'd hate to be disappointing. Her husband laughed. I don't think she'd go so far as to actually accept such a person, and write home to announce her engagement to the family. I suppose most of her swans here have been in the habit of proposing to her just as frequently, as she was unable to prevent them from going that far. And while I don't think she's been as discouraging with them as she might have been, she's never really accepted any of them. She's never been engaged before. No, Mrs. Atwater admitted. Not to this extent. She's never quite announced it to the family before, that is. Yes, I'd hate to have Julia's job when she comes back. Julia's brother admitted, rulefully. What shop? Breaking it to her admirers. Oh, she isn't going to do that. She'll have to now, he said. She'll either have to write the news to him, or else tell him face to face, when she comes home. She won't do either. Well, how could she get out of it? His wife smiled, pityingly. She hasn't set a time for coming home, has she? Don't you know enough of Julia's ways to see she'll never, in the world, stand up to the music? She writes that all the family can be told, because she knows the news will leak out here and there, in confidence, little by little, so by the time she gets home they'll all have been through their first spasms, and after that she hopes they'll just send her some forgiving flowers and greet her with manly hand-clasps, and get ready to usher at the wedding. Well, said Mr. Atwater, I'm afraid you're right. It does seem rather like Julia to stay away till the first of the worst is over. I'm really sorry for some of them. I suppose it will get whispered about, and they'll hear it, and there are some of the poor things that might take it pretty hard. Take it pretty hard, his wife echoed loudly. There's one of them, at least, who'll just merely lose his reason. Which one? Noble Dill. At this the slender form of Florence underwent a spasmodic seizure in her chair, but as the fit was short and also noiseless it passed without being noticed. Yes, said Mr. Atwater, thoughtfully I suppose he will. He certainly will, Mrs. Atwater declared. Noble's mother told me last week that he'd got so he was just as liable to drop a fountain-pin in his coffee as a lump of sugar, and when anyone speaks to him he either doesn't know it or else jumps. When he says anything himself, she says they can scarcely ever make out what he's talking about. He was trying enough before Julia went away, but since she's been gone, Mrs. Dill says he's like nothing in her experience. She says he doesn't inherit it. Mr. Dill wasn't anything like this about her. Mr. Atwater smiled frankly. Mrs. Dill wasn't anything like Julia. No, said his wife. She was quite a sensible girl. I'd hate to be in her place now, though, when she tells Noble about this. How can Mrs. Dill tell him, since she doesn't know it herself? Well, perhaps she ought to know it, so that she could tell him. Somebody ought to tell him, and it ought to be done with the greatest tact. It ought to be broken to him with the most delicate care and sympathy, or the consequences. Nobody could foretell the consequences. Her husband interrupted. No matter how tactfully it's broken to Noble. No, she said. I suppose that's true. I think the poor thing is likely to lose his reason, unless it is done tactfully, though. Do you think we really ought to tell Mrs. Dill, Molly? I mean seriously, do you? For some moments, she considered his question, then replied. No, it's possible we'd be following a Christian course in doing it. But still, we're rather bound not to speak of it outside the family, and when it does get outside the family, I think we'd better not be the ones responsible, especially since it might easily be traced to us. I think it's usually better to keep out of things when there's any doubt. Yes, he said, meditating, I never knew any harm to come of people sticking to their own affairs. But as he and his wife became silent for a time, musing in the firelight, their daughter's special convictions were far from coinciding with theirs. Although she, likewise, was silent, a singularity they should have observed. So far were they from a true comprehension of her. They were unaware that she had more than a casual young cousinly interest in Julia Atwater's engagement, and in those possible consequences, to Noble Dill, just sketched with some intentional exaggeration. They did not even notice her expression when Mr. Atwater snapped on the light in order to read, and she went quietly out of the library and up the stairs to her own room. On the floor, near her bed, where Patty Fairchild had left her coat and hat, Florence made another discovery. Two small folded slips of paper lay there, dropped by Miss Fairchild when she put on her coat in the darkening room. They were the replies to Patty's whispered questions in the game on the steps, the pledged truth, written by Henry Ruder and Herbert Atwater, on their sacred words and honors. The infatuated pair had either overestimated Patty's caution, or else each had thought she would so prize his little missive that she would treasure it in a tender safety, perhaps pinned upon her blouse, at the first opportunity, over her heart. It is positively safe to say that neither of the two veracities would ever have been set upon paper had Herbert and Henry any foreshadowing that Patty might be careless, and the partners would have been seized with the utmost horror could they have conceived the possibility of their trustful messages ever falling into the hands of the relentless creature who was now, without an instance, honorable hesitation unfolded and read them. Yes, if I got to tell the truth, I know I have got pretty eyes. Herbert had, unfortunately, written. I am glad you think so, too, Patty, because your eyes are too. Herbert Ellingsworth Atwater, Jr. And Mr. Henry Ruder had likewise ruined himself in a coincidental manner. Well, Patty, my eyes are pretty, but suppose I would like to trade with yours, because you have beautiful eyes also, sure as my name is Henry Ruder. Florence stood close to the pink-shaded electric drop light over her small white dressing table, reading again and again these pathetically honest little confidences. Her eyelids were withdrawn to an unprecedented retirement. So remarkably, she stared, while her mouth seemed to prepare itself for the attempted reception of a bulk beyond its capacity. And these plastic tokens, so immoderate as to be ordinarily the consequence of nothing short of horror, were overlaid by others, subtler, and more gleaming, which wrought the true significance of the contortion, a joy that was dumbfounding. Her thoughts were first of fortune's kindness in selecting her for a favor, so miraculously dovetailing into the precise need of her life. Then she considered Henry and Herbert, each at this hour probably brushing his hair in preparation for the Sunday evening meal, and both touchingly unconscious of the calamity now befalling them. But what eventually engrossed her mind was a thought about Wally Torben. This master Torben, fourteen years of age, was in all the town the boy most dreaded by his fellow boys, and also by girls, including many of both sexes, who knew him only by sight and hearing. He had no physical endowment or attainment worth mention, but boys, who could whip him with one hand, became psychophants in his presence. The terror he inspired was moral. He had a special overdevelopment of a faculty exercise, clumsily enough by most human beings, especially in their youth. In other words, he had a genius. Not, however, a genius having to do with anything generally recognized as art or science. True, if he had been a violinist prodigy or mathematical prodigy, he would have had some respect from his fellows. About equal to that, he might have received if he were gifted with some pleasant deformity, such as six toes on a foot. But he would never have enjoyed such deadly prestige as had actually come to be his. In brief, then, Wally Torben had a genius for mockery. Almost from his babyhood he had been a child of one purpose, to increase by burlesques the sufferings of unfortunate friends. If one of them wept, Wally incessantly pursued him, yelping in horrid mimicry. If one were chastised, he could not appear out of doors for days except to encounter Wally in a complete rehearsal of the recent agony. Quit, Papa! Papa! Quit! I'll never do it again, Papa! Oh, let me alone, Papa! As he grew older, his insatiate curiosity enabled him to expose unnumbered weaknesses, indiscretions, and social misfortunes on the part of acquaintances and schoolmates, and to every exposure his noise and energy gave a hideous publicity. The more his victims sought privacy, the more persistently he was followed by Wally, vociferous and attended by hilarious spectators. But above all other things, what most stimulated the demoniac boy to prodigies of satire was a tender episode or any symptom connected with the dawn of love. Florence herself had suffered at intervals throughout her eleventh summer because Wally discovered that Georgie Beck had sent her a Valentine, and the humorous many, many squalings of that Valentine's affectionate quatrain finally left her unable to decide which she hated the more, Wally or Georgie. That was the worst of Wally. He never let up. And in Florence's circle there was no more sobering threat than, I'll tell Wally Toerbin! As for Henry Roeder and Herbert Ellingsworth Atwater, Jr., they would as soon have had a headhunter on their trail as Wally Toerbin in the possession of anything that could incriminate them in an implication of love or an acknowledgement in their own handwriting of their own beauty. The fabric of civilized life is interwoven with blackmail. Even some of the noblest people do favors for other people who are depended upon not to tell somebody something that the noblest people have done. Blackmail is born into us all, and our nurses teach us more blackmail by threatening to tell our parents if we won't do this and that, and our parents threaten to tell the doctor, and so we learn. Blackmail is part of the daily life of a child. Displeased, his first resort to get his way with other children is a threat to tell, but by and by his experience discovers the mutual benefit of honor among blackmailers. Therefore, at eight, it is no longer the ticket to threaten to tell the teacher, and a little later, threatening to tell any adult at all is considered something of a breakdown in morals. Notoriously, the code is more liable to infraction by people of the physically weaker sex, for the very reason, of course, that their inferiority of muscle so frequently compels such a sin, if they are to have their way. But for Florence there was no such temptation. Looking to the demolition of at-water and router and exposure before adults of the results of truth would have been an effect of the sickliest pallor compared to what might be accomplished by a careful use of the catastrophic Wally Torbin. On Sunday evening it was her privilege custom to go to the house of fat old great Uncle Joseph and remain until nine o'clock in chatty companionship with Uncle Joseph and Aunt Kerry, his wife, and a few other relatives, including Herbert, who were in the habit of dropping in there on Sunday evenings. In summer, lemonade and cake were frequently provided. In the autumn one still found cake, and perhaps a picture of clear new cider. Apples were a certainty. This evening was glorious. There were apples and cider and cake, with walnuts perfectly cracked, and a large open-hearted box of candy. For Uncle Joseph and Aunt Kerry had foreseen the coming of several more at-waters than usual to talk over the new affairs of their beautiful relative, Julia. Seldom had any relative's new affairs been more thoroughly talked over than were Julia's that evening, though all the time by means of symbols, since it was thought wiser that Herbert and Florence should not yet be told of Julia's engagement, and Florence's parents were not present to confess their indiscretion. Julia was referred to as the Traveller. Other makeshifts were employed with the most knowing caution, and all the while Florence merely ate excruitably. The more sincere Herbert was placid, the foods absorbing his attention. Well, all I say is, the Traveller better enjoy herself on her travels, said Aunt Fanny, finally, as the subject appeared to be wearing toward exhaustion. She certainly is in for it, when the voyaging is over, and she arrives in the port she sailed from, and has to show her papers. I agree with the rest of you, she'll have a great deal to answer for, and most of all about the shortest one. My own opinion is that the shortest one is going to burst like a balloon. The shortest one, as the demure Florence had understood from the first, was none other than her very ideal. Now she looked up from the stool where she sat, with her back against a plaster of the mantelpiece. Uncle Joseph, she said, I was just thinking, what is a person's reason? The fat gentleman, Rosie with Firelight and Cider, finished his fifth glass before responding. Well, there are persons I never could find any reason for at all. A person's reason? What do you mean, a person's reason, Florence? I mean, like when somebody says, they'll lose their reason, she explained. Has everybody got a reason, and if they have, what is it, and how do they lose it, and what would they do then? Oh, I see, he said. You needn't worry. I suppose since you heard it, you've been hunting all over yourself for your reason, and looking to see if there was one hanging out of anybody else, somewhere. No, it's something you can't see ordinarily, Florence. Losing your reason is just another way of saying, going crazy. Oh, she murmured, and appeared to be disturbed. At this, Herbert thought it proper to offer a witticism for the pleasure of the company. You know, Florence, he said, it only means acting like you most always do. He applauded himself with a burst of changing laughter, ranging from a bullfrog croak to a collapsing soprano. Then he added, especially when you come round my and Henry's newspaper building, you certainly lose your reason every time you come round that old place. Well, of course, I have to act like the people that's already there. Florence retorted, not sharply, but an amusing tone that should have warned him. It was not her want to use a quiet voice for repartee. Thinking her humble, he laughed the more rocketsly. Oh, Florence, he besotted her. Say not so. Say not so. Children, children, Uncle Joseph remonstrated. Herbert changed his tone. He became seriously plentive. Well, she does act that way, Uncle Joseph. When she comes around there, you think we were running a lunatic asylum the way she takes on. She hollers and bellers and squalls and squawks. The least little teeny thing she don't like about the way we run our paper. She comes flapping over there and goes to screeching around. You could hear her out at the poor house farm. Now, now, Herbert, his aunt Fanny and her pose, poor little Florence isn't saying anything impolite to you, not right now at any rate. Why don't you be as little sweet to her just for once? Her unfortunate expression revolted all the manliness in Herbert's bosom. Be a little sweet to her? He echoed with poignant incredulity, and then and candor made plain how poorly Aunt Fanny inspired him. I'd just exactly as soon be a little sweet to an alligator, he said. Oh, oh, said Aunt Kerry. I would, Herbert insisted, or a mosquito. I'd rather to either of them, because anyway, they don't make so much noise. Why, you just ought to hear her, he went on, growing more and more severe. You ought to just come around our newspaper building any afternoon you please, after school, when Henry and I are trying to do our work, and anyway, some peace. Why, she just squawks and squalls and squ… It must be terrible, Uncle Joseph interrupted. What do you do all that for, Florence, every afternoon? Just for exercise, she answered dreamily, and her placidity, the more exasperated her journalist cousin. She does it because she thinks she ought to be running our own newspaper, my and Henry's. That's why she does it. She thinks she knows more about how to run newspapers than anybody alive, but there's one thing she's going to find out, and that is, she don't get anything more to do with my and Henry's newspaper. We wouldn't have another single one of her old poems in it, no matter how much she offered to pay us. Uncle Joseph, I think you ought to tell her she's got no business around my and Henry's newspaper building. But Herbert, Aunt Fanny have suggested, you might let Florence have a little share in it of some sort, then everything would be all right. It wouldn't. Oh, my goodness Aunt Fanny, I guess you'd like to see our newspaper just utterly ruined. Why, we wouldn't let that girl have any more to do with it than we would some horse. Oh, oh, both Aunt Fanny and Aunt Kerry exclaimed, shocked. We wouldn't, Herbert insisted. A horse would know any amount more how to run a newspaper than she does. Soon as we got our print and press, we said right then that we made up our minds Florence Atwater wasn't ever going to have a single thing to do with our newspaper. If you let her have anything to do with anything, she wants to run the whole thing. But she might just as well learn to stay away from our newspaper building, because after we got her out yesterday, we fixed away so she'll never get in there. Again Florence looked at him demurely. Are you sure, Herbert? She inquired. Just you try it, he advised her, and he laughed tauntingly. Just come around tomorrow and try it, that's all I ask. I certainly intend to, she responded with dignity. I may have a slight surprise for you. Oh, Florence, say not so. Say not so, Florence, say not so. At this she looked full upon him, and already she had something in the nature of a surprise for him, for so powerful was the still balefulness of her glance that he was slightly startled. I might say not so, she said. I might, if I was speaking of what pretty eyes you say yourself, you know you have, Herbert. It staggered him. What, what do you mean? Oh, nothing, she replied airily. Herbert began to be mistrustful of the solid earth. Somewhere there was a fearful threat to his equal poise. What you talking about, he said with an effort to speak scornfully, but his sensitive voice almost failed him. Oh, nothing, said Florence, just about what pretty eyes you know you have, and Patty's being pretty too, and so you're glad she thinks yours are pretty the way you do and everything. Herbert visibly gulped. He believed that Patty had betrayed him, had betrayed this one confidence of truth. That's all I was talking about, Florence added, just about how you knew you had such pretty eyes. Say not so, Herbert, say not so. Look here, he said. Won't you see Patty again between this afternoon and when you came over here? What makes you think I saw her? Did you telephone her? What makes you think so? Once more, Herbert gulped. Well, I think you're ready to believe anything anybody tells you, he said, with palsy bravado. You don't believe everything Patty Fairchild says, do you? Why, Herbert, doesn't she always tell the truth? Her? Why, half the time, poor Herbert babbled, you can't tell whether she's just making up what she says or not. If you've gone and believed everything that old girl told you, you haven't got even what little sense I used to think you had. So base we are, under strain, sometimes so base when our good name is threatened with the truth of us. I wouldn't believe anything she said, he added, in a sickish voice, if she told me fifty times and crossed her heart. Wouldn't you if she said you wrote down how pretty you knew your eyes were, Herbert? Wouldn't you if it was on paper in your own handwriting? What's this about Herbert having pretty eyes? Uncle Joe inquired, again bringing general attention to the younger cousins, and Herbert shuddered. This fat uncle had an unpleasant reputation as a joker. The nephew desperately fell back upon the hopeless device of attempting to drown out his opponent's voice as she began to reply. He became vociferous with scornful laughter, badly cracked. Florence got mad, he shouted, mingling the purported information with hoots and cacklings. She got mad because I and Henry played some games with Patty and wouldn't let her play. She's trying to make up stories on us to get even. She made it up. It's all made up. No, no, Mr. Atwater interrupted. Let Florence tell us. Florence, what was it about Herbert's knowing he had pretty eyes? Herbert attempted to continue the drowning out. He bawled, she made it up. It's something she made up herself. She— Herbert, said Uncle Joseph, if you don't keep quiet, I'll take back the printing press. Herbert substituted a gulp for the continuation of his noise. Now, Florence, said Uncle Joseph, tell us what you were saying about how Herbert knows he has such pretty eyes. Then it seemed to Herbert that a miracle befell. Florence looked up, smiling modestly. Oh, it wasn't anything, Uncle Joseph, she said. I was just trying to tease Herbert any way I could think of. Oh, was that all? A hopeful light faded out of Uncle Joseph's large and inexpressive face. I thought perhaps you'd detected in him some indiscretion. Florence laughed. I was just teasing him. It wasn't anything, Uncle Joseph. Hereupon Herbert resumed a confused breathing. Dazed, he remained uneasy, profoundly so, and gratitude was no part of his emotion. He well understood that in conflicts such as these, Florence was never susceptible to impulses of compassion. In fact, if there was warfare between them, experience had taught him to be warriest when she seemed kindest. He moved away from her, and went into another room where his condition was one of increasing mental discomfort, though he looked over the pictures in his great uncle's copy of Paradise Lost. These illustrations, by Monsieur Gustave Duret, failed to aid in reassuring his troubled mind. When Florence left the house, he impulsively accompanied her, maintaining a nervous silence as they walked the short distance between Uncle Joseph's front gate and her own. There, however, he spoke. Look here. You don't have to go and believe everything that old girl told you, do you? No, said Florence hardly. I don't have to. Well, look here. He urged, helpless, but to repeat. You don't have to believe whatever it was she went and told you, do you? What was it you think she told me, Herbert? All that guff. You know. Well, whatever it was you said she told you. I didn't, said Florence. I didn't say she told me anything at all. Well, she did. Didn't she? Why, no, Florence replied lightly. She didn't say anything to me. Only, I'm glad to have your opinion of her, how she's such a storyteller and all, if I ever want to tell her and everything. But Herbert had greater alarms than this, and the greater obscured the lesser. Look here, he said. If she didn't tell you, how'd you know it then? How'd I know what? That big story about my ever writing I knew I had, he gulped. Again, pretty eyes. Oh, about that, Florence said, and swung the gate shut between them. Well, I guess it's too late to tell you tonight, Herbert. But maybe, if you and that nasty little Henry-Rooter do every single thing I tell you to, and do it just exactly like I tell you, from this time on, why, maybe, I only say maybe, well, maybe I'll tell you someday when I feel like it. She ran up the path, and up the veranda's stubs, but paused before opening the front door, and called back to the waiting Herbert. The only person I'd ever think of telling about it before I tell you would be a boy I know. She coughed, and added, as an afterthought, he'd just love to know all about it. I know he would. So, when I tell anybody about it, I'll only just tell you, and this other boy. What other boy, Herbert demanded, and her reply, thrilling, through the darkness, left him demoralized with horror. WALL-E TORBIN END OF CHAPTER XIX OF GENTLE JULIA by Booth Tarkington. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Rating by Bologna Times. The next afternoon, about four o'clock, Herbert stood gloomily at the main entrance of Atwater and Rooters newspaper building, awaiting his partner. The other entrances were not only nailed fast but massively barricaded, and this one, consisting of the ancient carriage-house doors opening upon a driveway through the yard, had recently been made effective for exclusion. A long and heavy plank leaned against the wall nearby, ready to be set in hook-shaped iron supports fastened to the inner sides of the doors, and when the doors were closed with this great plank in place, a person inside the building might seem entitled to count upon the enjoyment of privacy, except in case of earthquake, tornado, or fire. In fact, the size of the plank and the substantial quality of the iron fastenings could be looked upon from a certain viewpoint as a real compliment to the energy and persistence of Florence Atwater. Herbert had been in no complementary frame of mind, however, when he devised the obstructions, nor was he now in such a frame of mind. He was pessimistic in regard to his future, and also embarrassed in anticipation of some explanations it would be necessary to make to his partner. He strongly hoped that Henry's regular after-school appearance at the newspaper building would proceed Florence's, because these explanations required both deliberation and tact, and he was convinced that it would be almost impossible to make them at all if Florence got there first. He understood that he was, unfortunately, within her power, and he saw that it would be dangerous to place in operation for her exclusion from the building this new mechanism contrived with such hopeful care and at a cost of two dollars and twenty-five cents taken from the Orioles' Treasury. What he wished Henry to believe was that for some good reason, which Herbert had not yet been able to invent, it would be better to show Florence a little politeness. He had a desperate hope that he might find some diplomatic way to prevail on Henry, to be as subservient to Florence as she had seemed to demand, and he was determined to touch any extremity of unveracity rather than permit the details of his answer in truth to come to his partner's knowledge. Henry Roeder was not Wally Torben, but in possession of material such as this he could easily make himself intolerable. Therefore it was in a flurried state of mind that Herbert waited, and when his friend appeared over the fence his perturbation was not decreased. He even failed to notice the unusual gravity of Henry's manner. Hello, Henry. I thought I wouldn't start in working till you got here. I didn't want to have to come all the way downstairs again to open the door and hiss our good old plank up again. I see, said Henry, glancing nervously at their good old plank. Well, I guess Florence will never get in this good old door. That is, she won't if we don't let her, or something. This final clause would have astonished Herbert if he had been less preoccupied with his troubles. You bet she won't, he said mechanically. She couldn't ever get in here again, if the family don't go interfering around and give me the dickens and everything, because they think they say they do anyhow. They say, they think, they think, he paused, disguising a little choke as a cough of scorn for the family's thinking. What did you say your family think? Henry asked absently. Well, they say we ought to let her have a share in our newspaper. Again, he paused, afraid to continue lest his hypocrisy appear so barefaced as to invite suspicion. Well, maybe we ought, he said finally, his eyes guiltily upon his toe, which slowly scuffed the ground. I don't say we ought, and I don't say we oughtn't. He expected, at the least, of sharp protest from his partner, who, on the contrary, surprised him. Well, that's the way I look at it, Henry said. I don't say we ought, and I don't say we oughtn't. And he, likewise, stared at the toe of a shoe that scuffed the ground. Herbert felt a little better. This particular subdivision of his difficulties seemed to be working out with unexpected ease. I don't say we will, I don't say we won't, Henry added. That's the way I look at it. My father and mother are always talking to me how I got to be polite in everything, and I guess maybe it's time I began to pay some tension to what they say. You don't have your father and mother for always, you know, Herbert. Herbert's mood at once chimed with this unprecedented filial melancholy. No, you don't, Henry. That's what I often think about myself. No, sir, a fellow doesn't have his father and mother to advise him our whole life, and you ought to do a good deal what they say while they're still alive. That's what I say, Henry agreed gloomily. And then, without any alteration of his tone, or of the dejected thoughtfulness of his attitude, he changed the subject in a way that painfully startled his companion. Have you seen Wally Torben today, Herbert? What? Have you seen Wally Torben today? Herbert swallowed. Why, what makes you ask me that, Henry? he said. Oh, nothing. Henry still kept his eyes upon his gloomily scuffing toe. I just wondered, because I didn't happen to see him in school this afternoon when I happened to look in the door of the 8A when it was open. I didn't want to know on account of anything particular. I just happened to say that about him because I didn't have anything else to think about just then, so I just happened to think about him the way you do when you haven't got anything much on your mind and might get to thinking about you can't tell what. That's all the way it was. I just happened to kind of wonder if he was around anywhere, maybe. Henry's tongue was obviously, even elaborately, sincere, and Herbert was reassured. Well, I didn't see him. He responded, maybe, sick. No, he isn't, his friend said. Florence said she saw him chasing his dog down the street about noon. At this, Herbert's uneasiness was uncomfortably renewed. Florence dead? Where'd you see Florence? Mr. Rooter swallowed. A little while ago, he said, and again swallowed, on the way home from school. Look! Look here! Herbert was flurried to the point of panic. Henry! Did Florence? Did she go and tell you? Did she tell you? I didn't hardly notice what she was talking about, Henry said doggedly. She didn't have anything to say that I'd ever care two cents about. She came up behind me and walked along with me a ways, but I got too many things on my mind to hardly pay the least attention to anything she ever talks about. She's a girl, what I think about her, the less people pay any attention to what she says, the better off they are. That's the way with me, Henry, his partner assured him earnestly. I never pay any notice to what she says. The way I figure it out about her, Henry, everybody'd be a good deal better off if nobody ever paid the least notice to anything she says. I never even notice what she says myself. I don't either, said Henry, all I think about is what my mother and father say, because I'm not going to have their advice all the rest of my life after they're dead. If they want me to be polite, why, I'll do it, and that's all there is about it. It's the same way with me, Henry, if she comes flapping around here, blatting and blubbing about how she's going to have something to do with our newspaper, why, the only reason I'd ever let her would be because my family say, I ought to show more politeness to her than up to now. I wouldn't do it on any other account, Henry. Neither would I. That's just the same way I look at it, Herbert. If I ever began to treat her any better, she's got my father and mother to thank, not me. That's the only reason I'd be willing to say we better leave the plank town and let her in if she comes around here like she's labelled to do. Well, said Herbert, I'm willing. I just don't want to get in trouble with the family. And they mounted the stairs to their editorial, reputorial, and printing rooms, and began to work in a manner not only preoccupied but apprehensive. At intervals they would give each other a furtive glance, and then seemed to reflect upon their fathers and mothers' wishes and the troublesome state of the times. Florence did not keep them waiting long, however. She might have been easier to bear had her manner of arrival been less assured. She romped up the stairs, came skipping across the old floor, swinging her hat by a ribbon, flung open the gate in the sacred railing, and, flouncing into the principal chair, immodestly placed her feet on the table in front of that chair. Additionally, such was her lively humor she affected to light and smoke the stub of a lead pencil. Well, men, she said heartily, I don't want to see any loafing around here, men. I expect I'll have a pretty good newspaper this week. Yes, sir, a pretty good newspaper, and I guess you men got to jump around a good deal to do everything I think of, or else, maybe, I guess I'll have to turn you off. I don't want to have to do that, men. The blackmailed partners made no reply, on account of an inability that was perfect for the moment. They stared at her helplessly, though not kindly, for in their expressions the conflict between desire and policy was almost staringly vivid, and such was their preoccupation, each with the bitterness of his own case, that neither wondered at the other's strange complacence. Florence made it clear to them that henceforth she was the editor of the North End Daily Oriole. She said she had decided not to change the name. She informed them that they were to be her printers. She did not care to get all inky and nasty herself, she said. She would, however, do all the writing for her newspaper, and had with her a new poem. Also she would furnish all the news, and it would be printed just as she wrote it, and printed nicely, too, or else she left the sentence unfinished. Thus did this cool hand take possession of an established industry, and in much the same fashion did she continue to manage it. There were unsuppressable protests. There was covert anguish. There was even a strike. But it was a short one. When the printers remained away from their late newspaper building on Wednesday afternoon, Florence had an interview with Herbert after dinner at his own door. He explained coldly that Henry and he had grown tired of the printing press, and had decided to put in all their spare time building a theatre in Henry's attic. But Florence gave him to understand that the theatre could not be. She preferred the Oriole. Henry and Herbert had both stopped speaking to Paddy Fairchild, for each believed her treacherous to himself. But Florence now informed Herbert that far from depending on mere hearsay, she had in her own possession the confession of his knowledge that he had ocular beauty, that she had discovered the paper where Paddy had lost it, and that it was now in a secure place, and in an envelope upon the outside of which was already written for Wally Torben, kindness of Florence A. Herbert surrendered. So did Henry Rooter, a little later that evening, after a telephone conversation with the slave driver. Therefore the two miserable printers were back in their places the next afternoon. They told each other that the theatre they had planned wasn't so much after all, and anyhow your father and mother didn't last all your life, and it was better to do what they wanted, and be polite while they were alive. And on Saturday the new Oriole, now in every jot, and item, the inspired organ of feminism, made its undeniably sensational appearance. A copy, neatly folded, was placed in the hand of Noble Ville, as he set forth for his place of business after lynching at home with his mother. Florence was the person who placed it there. She came hurriedly from somewhere in the neighborhood, out of what yard or alley he did not notice, and slipped the little oblong sheet into his lax fingers. There, she said breathlessly, there's a good deal about you and it this week, Mr. Dill, and I guess, I guess, what Florence? I guess maybe you'll—she looked up at him shyly, then, with no more to say, turned and ran back in the direction whence she had come. Noble walked on, not at once examining her little gift, but carrying it absently, and fingers still lax at the end of a dangling arm. There was no life in him for anything, Julia was away. Away! and yet the dazzling creature looked at him from sky, from earth, from air, looked at him with the most poignant kindness, yet always shook her head. She had answered his first letter by a kind little note, his second by a kinder and littler one, and his third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, by no note at all, but by the kindest message, through one of her aunts, that she was thinking about him a great deal, and even this was three weeks ago. Since then, from Julia, nothing at all. But yesterday, something a little simulating had happened. On the street, downtown, he had come face to face, momentarily, with Julia's father, and for the first time in Noble's life, Mr. Outwater nodded to him pleasantly. Noble went on his way, elated, was there not something almost fatherly in this strange greeting? An event so singular might be interpreted in the happiest way. What had Julia written her father to change him so toward Noble? And Noble was still dreamily interpreting as he walked down the street with the north end daily Oriole idol in an idle hand. He found a use for that hand presently, and, having sighed, lifted it to press it upon his brow, but did not complete the gesture. As his hand came within the scopence, he observed that the fingers held a sheet of printed paper, and he remembered Florence. Instead of pressing his brow, he unfolded the journal she had thrust upon him. As he began to read, his eye was lustreless, his gait slack and dreary, but soon his whole demeanor changed. It cannot be said for the better. The north end daily Oriole, Atwater and Co. Owners and proprietors, subscribe now, twenty-five cents per year. Subscriptions should be brought to the east main entrance of Atwater and Co. newspaper building every afternoon for thirty to six, twenty-five cents. Poems My Soul by Florence Atwater When my heart is dreary, then my soul is weary as a bird with a broken wing, who will never again sing, like the sound of a vast amen that comes from a church of men. When my soul is dreary, it could never be cheery, but I think of my ideal, and everything seems real, like the sound of the bright church bell's peal. Poems by Florence Atwater will be in the paper each and every sat. Advertisements forty-five cents, each up. Joseph K. Atwater Co. 127 South Iowa Street, Steampumps The News of the City Miss Florence Atwater of this city received a mark of ninety-four in history examination at the conclusion of the school term last June. Blue hair ribbons are in style again. Miss Patty Fairchild of the city has not been doing as well in declination lately as formerly. Mr. Noble Dill of this city is seldom seen on the streets of the city without smoking a cigarette. Miss Julia Atwater of this city is out of the city. The Mr. Rayfort family of this city have been presented dead with the present of a new cat by Gio, the man employed by Balf and Co. This cat is perfectly bountiful and still quit young. Miss Julia Atwater of this city is visiting friends in the South. The family have had many letters from her that are read by each and all of the family. Mr. Noble Dill of this city is in business with his father. There was quite a windstorm Thursday doing damage to shade trees in many parts of our beautiful city. From letters to the family, Miss Julia Atwater of this city is enjoying her visit in the South a great deal. Miss Patty Fairchild of the 7A of this city will probably not pass in arithmetic, unless great improvement takes place before examination. Miss Julia Atwater of this city wrote a letter to the family stating while visiting in the South she has made an engagement to be married to Mr. Crumb of that city. The family do not know who this Mr. Crumb is, but it is said he is a widower, though he has been divorced with a great many children. The new ditch of the Mr. Henry D. Vance backyard of this city is about through now, as little remain to be done, and it is thought the neighborhood will son look better. Subscribe now 25 cents per year advance 45 cents up at Water and Co. newspaper building 25 cents per year. It may be assumed that the last of the news items was wasted on Noble Dill, and that he never knew of the neighborhood improvement believed to be imminent as a result of the final touches to the ditch of the Mr. Henry D. Vance backyard.