Booth Tarkington

“ Mr. Rolfo Williams, to describe this mood of Lucius Allen’s, made free use of the word “sag.” Mr. Williams stood upon the corner with his wife, that amiable matron, and P. Borodino Thompson, all three staring unaffectedly. “That’s Lu Allen’s lady-walk,” said Rolfo, as E. J. Fuller and Mortimer joined them. “He always kind o’ sags when he goes out walkin’ with the girls. Sags toe-ward ’em. I’ll say this much: I never see him sag deeper than what he is right now. Looks to me like he’s just about fixin’ to lean on her!” ”

“ Mrs. Ricketts called suddenly, but not alarmingly, as she raised the window. “Stand still, Maud! Now walk straight this way—walk toward me. Instantly!”
And as Maud obeyed, her mother jumped out of the window, a proceeding that both children recognized as extraordinary and ill-omened. Bill instinctively began to defend himself.
“You never told us we couldn’t paint horses!” he said hotly. “We haven’t painted him much, we’ve only——”
“March!” said his mother in the tone that meant the worst. “Round to the kitchen—not through the house! Both of you! Quick!” ”

“ At least, that is what a man from Marlow will begin to claim as soon as he has journeyed fifteen or twenty miles from home; but to display the daring of Midland patriotism in a word, there have been Saturdays (with the farmers in town) when strangers of open-minded appearance have been told, right down on the Square itself, that Marlow consisted of upwards of four thousand mighty enterprising inhabitants. ”

“ Lucius dangled the ferule of the long-handled blue parasol over the glowing head of a dandelion in the grass. “Not so much,” he answered. “And old Doc Worley and his wife don’t drive in their surrey in the summer evenings any more. They’re both out in the cemetery now, and the surrey’s somewhere in the air we breathe, because it was burnt on a trash-heap the other day, though I’ve seemed to see it driving home in the dusk a hundred times since it fell to pieces. Nowadays hardly any, even of the old folks, ride in surreys. These ten years have changed the world, Lucy. ”

“ You and Bore better look out, Lu. Henry’s some years younger than what you and Bore are. He ain’t as stocky as what you are, nor as skinny as what Bore is, and he certainly out-dresses the both of you every day in the week an’ twicet on Sunday!”
“Thank you, Mortimore,” Lucius responded, nodding. “I’d been calculating a little on a new necktie—but probably it wouldn’t be much use if Henry Ledyard’s going to——”
“No, sir,” Mortimer interrupted to agree. “Henry buys ’em a couple or more at a time. Newt Truscom’s goin’ to be a rich man if Henry don’t quit. ”

“ Money and gasoline. Even Marlow’s got into the world; and in the evenings they go out snorting and sirening and blowing-out and smoking blue oil all over creation. Bore Thompson’s about the only man in town that’s still got any use for a hitching-post. He drives an old white horse to a phaeton, and by to-morrow afternoon at the latest you’ll find that old horse and phaeton tied to the ring in the hand of that little old cast-iron stripe-shirted nigger-boy in front of your gate yonder.”
Mrs. Ricketts glanced frowningly at the obsolete decoration he mentioned ”

“ Rolfo Williams says she always did know you were the smartest man in this town!”
“Now what are you talking about?” Lucius demanded sharply, but he was growing red to the ears, and over them.
“Goin’ out o’ town,” said Mortimer admiringly. “Keepin’ out the way o’ them chuldern and lettin’ other fellers take the brunt of ’em. Yes, sir; there isn’t a soul raises the question but what their mother is the finest-lookin’ lady that ever lived here, or but what she does every last thing any mortal could do in the line o’ disciplinn ”

“ Well, sir, I almost let out a holler: first thing I thought was they must of been in the worst accident this town had ever saw. Why, pore ole General—honest, he looked more like a slaughter-house than he did like a horse, Lu! ‘What in the name of God is the matter, Bore!’ I says, and you never hear a man take on the way he done.
“Seems Maud and Bill had painted ole General red, and they painted him thick, too, while Bore was in the house fixin’ to take their mother out on this here buggy-ride. And, well, sir, to hear him take on, you’d of thought I was responsible for the whole business! ”

“ Fuller, making for the open, was annoyed by the question. “Out!” he replied.
“I got nothin’ much to do right now,” said the sociable Mortimer. “I’ll go with you. Where’d you say you was goin’, Ed?”
“Business!” Mr. Fuller replied crossly.
“That suits me, Ed. I kind o’ want to see Lu Allen, myself!”
Thereupon they set forth across the Square, taking a path that ran through the courthouse yard; but when they came out from behind the old, red brick building and obtained a fair view of the Garfield Block, they paused. She of the blue parasol was disappearing into the warm obscurity of Pawpaw Street ”

“ Mr. Allen said thoughtfully, “nobody takes much notice what a chunky kind of man with a reddish head and getting a little bald says. It’s quite a privilege.”
She laughed again, and sighed again. “Do you remember how we used to sit out here in the evenings under the trees, Lucius? One of the things I’ve often thought about since then was how when you were here, papa and mamma would bring their chairs and join us, and you’d talk about the moon, and astronomy, and the Hundred Years War, and——”
“Yes!” Lucius interrupted ruefully. ”

“ Some wall-paperin’ goin’ on here and there over town, E. J. Fuller says. Ed says P. Borodino Thompson told him he was goin’ to drop round and call this evening, he says; but afterwards I was up at the hardware store, and Bore come in there and Rolfo Williams’s wife talked him out o’ goin’. ‘My heavens!’ she says, ‘can’t you even give her a couple days to git unpacked and straighten up the house?’ So Bore says he guessed he’d wait till to-morrow afternoon and ast her to go buggy-ridin’ in that ole mud-coloured phaeton of his. ”

“ Mr. Fuller inquired, not referring to Mrs. Murdock. “Over at the hotel?”
“Nope,” Mortimer replied. “She ain’t puttin’ up there. Right now she’s went upstairs in the Garfield Block to Lu Allen’s office. Haven’t heard what Lu’s got to say or whether she’s come out. You git to see her yet?”
“No, sir,” Mr. Fuller returned, rather indifferently. “What’s she look like, Mortimore?”
“Well, sir, I can give you a right good notion about that,” said Mortimer. “I expect I’m perty much the only man in town that could, too. ”

“ This unfavourable comment caused him to tuck his tie back into the neck of his white waistcoat in haste, and to face the doorway somewhat confusedly. Two pretty little children stood there, starchy and fresh, and lustrously clean, dressed in white: a boy about seven and a girl about five—and both had their mother’s blue eyes and amber hair.
“He’s dressin’ himself,” said the boy. ”

“ But Bore never went back there, and ain’t goin’ to, you bet, any more than what Henry Ledyard is! There ain’t hardly a man in town but what Maud and Bill’s got buffaloed, Lu.”
Mr. Allen occupied himself with the sharpening of a pencil. “What did they do to Thompson?” he asked casually.
“Well, sir, fer the first few days I expect I was the only man in town knowed what it was.” Mr. ”

“ Mortimer interrupted firmly. “They come up-town to the Square, the next afternoon after they busted Henry’s twelve-dollar hat, and they went into E. J. Fuller’s store and Ed says they come mighty near drivin’ him crazy, walkin’ up and down behind him singin’ ‘Gran’-mammy Tipsytoe.’ Then they went on over to Milo Carter’s, and they had a dollar and forty cents with ’em that they’d went and got out of their little bank. They et seven big ice-cream sodies apiece and got sick right in the store. Milo had to telephone fer their mother, and her and the Norwegian come and had to about carry ’em home. ”

“ Henry was settin’ in the parlour talkin’ to their mother, and, the way I heard it, all of a sudden they heard somep’n go ‘Pop!’ outside, in the hall, and when they come to look, it was that new, stiff, high-crowned straw hat he went and ordered from New York and had shipped out here by express. They got a woman up there cookin’ and a Norwegian lady to do extra work, and I hear this here Norwegian tells some that the way it happened was Maud was settin’ on it, kind of jouncin’ around to see if it wouldn’t bounce her up and down. ”