Booth Tarkington

“ Ricketts aren’t going to walk up-town for the concert, and maybe I can sort of push myself in among the family so that I can walk anyway in the same group with Mary! It’s going to be moonlight, and as balmy as a night in a piece of poetry! By George! you can smell apple-blossoms from one end of the town to the other, Joe!”
“How you hate talking!” Mr. Perley remarked discouragingly.
“I hear the band is going to try ‘Schubert’s Serenade,’” Lucius continued. “The boys aren’t so bad as we make out, after all; the truth is, they play almighty well. ”

“ THE SPRING CONCERT THE town was only about eighty years old, but it loved to think of itself as a “good old place,” and it habitually spoke of the residence of its principal citizen as “that old-fashioned Ricketts property.”
This was an under-statement: the Ricketts place was more than merely old-fashioned. So rapidly do fashions change in houses, nowadays, in small towns as well as in big, and so quickly does life become history, that the “Ricketts property” at fifty years of age was an actual archæological relic. ”

“ Mr. Allen paused genially, then concluded: “You see, Miss Mary, I’ve just been leading up logically to the question: Which is you and which is the rest of the apple-blossoms?”
Miss Ricketts made no vocal reply, but there was a slight concentration of the fine space between her eyebrows; decidedly no symptom of pleasure, though she might properly have enjoyed the loiterer’s little extravagance, which was far from being inaccurate as extravagances go. Mr. Allen was forced to remind himself that “nobody loves a fat man,” though he decided not to set his thoughts before the lady. ”

“ It’s the skinny seamstress of forty that dreams the most of marquises in silver armour; and darky boys in school forget the lesson in reveries about themselves—they think of themselves on horseback as generals with white faces and straight blond hair. And everybody knows that the best poets are almost always outrageously ordinary to look at. ”

“ It must be simply she doesn’t want to go with you, Lucius Brutus Allen!’ That’s what I said to myself, Joe. ‘You’re practically a fat old man from her point of view,’ I said to myself. ‘She wants to go, but you aren’t the fellow she wants to go with. Well, who is it? Evidently,’ I reasoned, ‘evidently he hasn’t turned up, because she’s just the least bit snappish the way she tells me she isn’t pining for my escort.’ Well, sir, I began to cast around in my mind to think who on earth it could be. ”

“ You don’t mind my staying here if we talk about something else?”
“No—not much.”
“I mentioned that I asked Mary Ricketts to go with me to the band concert to-night, didn’t I?” Mr. Allen inquired, as he lit his cigar. “I was telling you about that, wasn’t I, Joe?”
“You said something about it,” Mr. Perley replied with evident ennui.
“You know, Joe,” said Lucius, his tone becoming confidential, “I walk past the old Ricketts property every afternoon on my way home. It’s quite considerable out of my way, but I always do. Fact is,” he chuckled ruefully, “I can’t help it.” ”

“ Mr. Allen nodded. “A reputation like that is mighty helpful sometimes.”
“Well, if you like it you’re free to refer all inquirers to me,” said Joe heartily. “You’re trying to tell me Mary Ricketts was ‘thinking’ about me, and I don’t suppose I’ve seen her as much as five times this year; and I haven’t known her—not to speak of—since we were children. I don’t suppose I’ve had twenty minutes’ talk with her, all told, since I got back from college. The only girl I ever see anything of at all is Molly Baker, and that’s only because she happens to live next door. ”

“ Mr. Allen helped himself to buttermilk, ate a cracker, leaned back in his chair, and began to hum “Annie Laurie.”
“Stop that!” said Perley sharply.
“Certainly,” said Lucius. “I’ll whistle instead.”
“If you do,” the troubled young man warned him, apparently in good faith, “I’ll kill you!”
“What can I do to entertain you, Joe?”
“You might clear out,” his friend suggested darkly. “God knows I haven’t asked for your society!”
“No,” said Lucius. “Our fairest gifts do oft arrive without petition. What an unusual thought! ”

“ This is a funny world: there’s a lot of things a fellow’s got to be afraid of in it, and the older he gets the more he sees to scare him. I think what I like best about that old Ricketts property is the kind of safe look it has. ”

“ Mr. Allen laughed cheerfully. “Anybody at Joe’s age can turn out any way he wants to,” he said. “Mrs. Perley needn’t worry about Joe any more. I just sat with him an hour down at the National House, and there was an open whisky bottle on the table before us, and he never once touched it all the time I was talking with him.”
“Well, I’m glad of that,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “That ought to show he has plenty of will-power, anyhow.”
“Plenty,” said Lucius.
Then Mary’s young voice called from the spaces of night. “I’m going to walk up-town to the concert with Mr. Perley, mother. ”

“ This is springtime, Joseph; and the wren lays an egg no bigger than a fairy’s. The little birds——”
“By George!” Mr. Perley exclaimed, in real astonishment. “See here!” he said. “Had you been drinking, yourself, before you came in? If not, it’s the first time I knew a person could get a talking jag on buttermilk.”
“No,” said Lucius, correcting him. “It’s on apple-blossoms. She was sitting under ’em pretending to read a book, but I suppose she was thinking about you, Joe.”
“Who was?”
“Mary,” Mr. Allen replied quietly. “Mary Ricketts.” ”

“ Mr. Allen rose, dusting some crumbs of cracker from his attire. “I guess I must have won the buttermilk record, George,” he said, as he placed a silver dollar upon the bar. “If buttermilk were intoxicating there wouldn’t be a sober creature on the face of the earth. Trouble with your other stuff, George, it tastes so rotten!”
“I take buttermilk sometimes myself, Lu,” said George as he made change. “I guess there ain’t nobody seen me carryin’ much hard liquor sence my second child was born. That was the time they had to jug me, and—whoo, gosh! ”

“ Allen inquired. “Or only for the afternoon?”
“I don’t want to be talked to!”
“I do,” said Lucius. “Talk to me.”
Here the bartender permitted himself the intervention of a giggle, and wiped his dry bar industriously—his favourite gesture. “You ain’t goin’ to git much talk out o’ Joe, Lu!” he said. “All he’s said sence he come in here was jest, ‘Gimme same, George.’ I tell him he ain’t goin’ to be in no condition to ’tend the band concert ’s evening if he keeps on another couple hours or so. Me, I don’t mind seein’ a man drink some, but I like to see him git a little fun out of it!” ”

“ People are liable to say anything at all.”
“Yes,” Miss Ricketts returned, not mollified. “I’ve just noticed.” She gave him one dark glance, wholly unfavourable, as she spoke, and then looked down at her book again, allowing him no possible doubt that she wished to proceed with her reading.
“I’m a hard man to discourage,” said Mr. Allen. “The band’s going to play in the Square to-night. It’s been practising ‘Annie Laurie’ and ‘Tenting To-night’ all winter, up in the storeroom over Tom Leggett’s wall-paper and book emporium, and of course the boys are anxious to give their first concert. ”

“ You don’t happen to walk by there much, do you, Joe?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, sir, you ought to!” said Lucius genially. “The orchard’s in bloom, and you ought to see it. The Ricketts orchard is the show of this county. The good old judge has surely looked after those old apple-trees of his; they’re every one just solid blossom. Yes, sir, every last one! Why, it made me feel like a dryad!”
“Like a who?”
“You mean that I’m thirty-five”—so Mr. Allen thought fit to interpret this question—“and that I’m getting a little fat, some baldish and a whole lot reddish. So I am ”

“ Mr. Allen interrupted, sighing. “I’ve been through this before with you, George. I’ll take buttermilk.”
“Oh, got plenty buttermilk!” the bartender said, brightening; and supplied his customer from a large, bedewed white pitcher. “Buttermilk goes good this weather, don’t it, Lu?”
“It do,” said Lucius gravely.
Glass in hand, he went to a small round table where sat the only other present patron of the bar—a young man well-favoured, but obviously in a state morbid if not moribund. He did not look up at Mr. Allen’s approach ”

“ Allen musingly. “Our community is going to see a night of wine and music, George.”
“I’ll jest open a fresh bottle fer you, Joe,” the bartender continued; “and when I git back I’ll charge you with how many drinks you take out of it. I’m goin’ on home to supper. You want any more buttermilk, Lu?”
“Bring the pitcher,” said Mr. Allen. “I will sup upon it.”
“All right.” And George brought to the table the pitcher of buttermilk, a dim saucer of crackers and cheese, a brown bottle, ice-water, and fresh glasses. ”