H. C. Bunner

“ Tom led him. The end of that second week found her in the fore-front of all the hotel gayety. She slept at home; but her days and her evenings were passed with her hotellites, who diverted themselves without ceasing. That week a flash, fashionable dress-maker and milliner came up from New York, and Mrs. Tom gave orders for dresses that made the eyes shine in the scheming heads of the birds of prey. ”

“ The newmade millionaire wanted something that showed for more in the shop-window. He found plenty of people to aid him in his search. The summer hotel sprang into existence to relieve him of all trouble for three months in the year. The Parisian opéra bouffe and the British burlesque came across the ocean to give a tone of sophisticated frivolity to the freshly formed society in which he found himself. He accustomed his palate to the taste of champagne. It was not long before his highest ethical aspirations were satisfied.
And here he was, holding high carnival in dazzled Northoak. ”

“ Mr. Tom Turner never wasted words—his vocabulary did not allow of extravagance. I climbed into his "two-seater," and sat behind, talking to Mrs. Tom, who shared the front seat with her husband. She had to look over her shoulder as we conversed, and she paid my budding manhood the tribute of a shy blush. She called me "Mr.," too; and I was proud and happy as I sat there talking to her and studying her as only a hobbledehoy can study a young woman.
Every boy goes through this time of standing outside the world of grown women and studying them. ”

“ Adriance was badly shaken up. He was out of training and incapable of sustained exertion. He shook Mowatt's hand and tried to smile as he said:
"My only regret is that you weren't born in Kentucky."
The Grand Stand went wild, of course, and made the most of its two heroes, and even of Ferguson, who had shown an unexpected pluck. Jack Mowatt was the hero of the hour, and the women fairly flung themselves at his feet. If it had not been Jack's lot in life to bask in women's smiles, his head might have been turned. ”

“ On Tuesday she saw his trunks go out of the hotel marked for New York. A letter to one of his friends among the men conveyed the intelligence that he was called away by the illness of a relative.
It turned out to be no solution at all. He dealt his victim a cruel blow, but did not awaken her from her dream. In that one week Mrs. Tom had heard more about flirtations and jiltings and transfers of affection generally than she had heard in all her previous life. She had even met one ingenuous Southern maid who was habitually engaged to three gentlemen at once. ”

“ For the curse of the summer-hotel had come upon Northoak, and Northoak had received it with dignified submission, accepting it, perhaps, as a punishment for the sins of well-bred pride and polite self-complacency.
The place had always been well satisfied with itself. The little village had been satisfied to be a little village, with a few small shops bidding lazily for the custom of the people on the "estates." The estates, certainly, could look contentedly down from their uplands and rejoice in their well-cultivated acres and in their substantial houses. ”

“ Tom is dead, or this tale would not be told. But it is only a few years since she died, and I think that she had time enough on earth to wear out those cruel clothes, and to sit a while with her husband and her children, clad in such a soft gray gown as I saw her wear once upon a time, with a white handkerchief folded over a peaceful breast. ”

“ Saturday ended this carnival of fear, for the great hotel closed. Nearly six-score people, sick and well, left the great barracks, staring at the dull fall day out of its hundreds of blindless windows, marched down the long street, and piled in confusion into the two stuffy little cars that made up a train on the shaky little railroad that ran from Northoak to the Hudson River. The decenter of the lot somehow settled in the rearward car ”

“ MRS. TOM'S SPREE.
By H. C. Bunner.
THERE was high carnival held in Northoak one breezy August day, some twenty odd years ago, in a time when the weather seems to me, as I look back on it, much more genially bracing and inspiriting than the weather we have nowadays. I am sure of one thing: we have no better days now than that day, none when the breeze blows more briskly, cool and soft, than it blew that day up and down the rolling hill-sides of Northoak, fluttering bright ribbons along every road and path. ”

“ Don't believe in scares—but you know what the papers say. Cholera on the other side—had a genuine case in New York yesterday. Just about time we had another turn of it in this country. And if it does come, young man, this is the sort of place that's just ripe for it. Five hundred new people here since June—not a drain—not a damn drain—beg your pardon, sir!—It's manslaughter—rank manslaughter! And if it gets into that devil's toy-shop there"—he pointed to the hotel—"it will have everything its own way—close the cussed place, I hope! ”

“ You don't notice ladies' dresses, do you? Men never do. But it must be lovely to dance to that splendid band! Do you dance? If you do, you mustn't forget your country friends—" and so on, while Tom drove stolidly along, and I watched this poor little gray pigeon preen her wings—watched her with all a boy's cruel but observant interest.
And here, as the conversation which I had overheard a few minutes before was the beginning of a bad business, for which Jack Mowatt has been often blamed, let me say a word for that unlucky butterfly. ”

“ Cleanliness is an attribute that we predicate of all decent and lovable folk, yet there are persons whose cleanliness is offensive, and there are others whose cleanliness is so near to godliness as to be altogether lovable. Mrs. Tom carried with her an atmosphere of material as well as moral purity that absolutely radiated a sweet domesticity. ”

“ However, it was an opportunity for fun, for excitement, for showing of pretty gowns, betting of gloves and champagne and bon-bons and cigars. The hotellites turned out, one and all. Their landaulets and barouches and pony phaetons whirled pretty girls along the dusty highways, and all the primary colors flashed in the sun. Even the hill people came. A horse-race aroused every true American among them.
I trudged along the road, happy enough, yet longing for an invitation to ride beside the least of those pretty girls. I knew the hotel people, after a fashion ”

“ Beauty itself she must have known was beyond her reach. But that she would be in the ranks of beauty, be one of the women who charm and are courted, breathe the delicious incense of men's adoration—this had been revealed to her by proof indubitable. ”

“ It's between Mowatt and Adriance."
"And which is your man?" inquired Mrs. Tom, smiling.
"Mowatt, of course. New York against Kentucky."
"Then he's mine," said Mrs. Tom.
As she spoke the bell rang, the horses started forward, made a bad start, and went back. Then came another bad start, and then they got off, on the worst start of all three, with Mowatt in the lead, and Adriance badly pocketed by De Vere and McAlpine. Jack pushed his horse and rode like a madman. He was a dozen lengths ahead when he passed us.
"Ah!" growled Tom Turner, in disgust: "fool—he'll never last!" ”

“ Ferguson, the millionaire contractor, took a driving-party of twenty to the Mountain House, a sporting resort some ten miles away, up in the hills, and when they sat down to supper (cooked by a New York chef, served by New York waiters) each lady found her napkin rolled up in a gold bracelet set with diamonds, by way of a napkin-ring—a dainty conceit of the millionaire's. It was at this supper, I believe, that they induced Mrs. Tom to sing "Dites-lui," and found great sport therein. ”

“ And this much I am sure of: we who left our boyhood behind us a score of years ago were a deal merrier, more companion able, juicier fellows than the finished youths of to-day, who take their pleasures so sadly; who know such a weary, worry some lot about what is good form and what isn't, and who treat women just as they would men. ”

“ But if you were there to make a call, the hostess came and led you forth from the room on the left to the grander chamber that looked out upon the lawn.
You may gather from this that Northoak had an aristocracy and something of a feudal system. It had both, and they were curiously well developed and firmly established for a downright rural community. This maintenance of an old-world social system in a democratic new-world was characteristic of the elder and larger towns of the State. ”

“ She could have honestly admired a beautiful woman, just as she might have respected a Greek scholar. She had never longed for beauty: it went for little in her world—for less than fair birth or breeding, and both of these she had. ”

“ Other young men there were, also, who challenged their supremacy. To-day, therefore, a race, a wonderful race of twenty miles was to be run, in four-mile heats, on the track of the old county-fair grounds. It was an absurd contest; cruel on the country horses which had to be hired to supply four out of the five relays for each rider, and it was no fair test of the horsemanship of the two youths. Adriance was beyond doubt the more skilful and graceful horseman ”

“ They can't think their mother ever did anything wrong—it's like talking of original sin to them. But you know they'll be out in the world—that is our world—here in a little while, and then it will all be told to them, and you know how it will be told—you know just how they'll have to hear it. ”

“ It existed here because Northoak was originally a settlement of what are called retired business-men, who rented their New York houses and gardens, seventy-five or eighty years ago, and turned themselves into country gentlemen. Their grandsons still collected rent for the same property, only that they leased factories and warehouses. And they spent thousands where their grandfathers had spent hundreds, to live just about as their grandfathers had lived. ”

“ These things changed the face of the town, but the people brought a greater change. It was an early year in that series of years which linked the close of the war to the panic of 1873—a year, like its fellows, of general extravagance and ostentation. Thousands of people were rich who had never expected to be. ”

“ Tom, clean out of her modest depth in color, fairly floundered in reds and greens and blues and yellows—and let me remind you that we had had no Morris in those days, no Burne-Jones to tell us of the sin of primary colors, or to teach us the holiness of sage-green and the sacredness of old gold and the terra-cotta family. Mrs. Tom made ample return for these aids to fashionable elegance. She lent money to ladies expecting remittances, and showed unwearying patience in awaiting the remittances; she guaranteed their credit at the dress-maker's ”

“ That's Jack Mowatt there, mounting the bay with a star—Adriance is the thin fellow with the chestnut. The little chap on the big gray horse is De Vere—I think he used to be on the stage. The man in the queer-looking buckskin—see! that yellowish one—is McAlpine—he plays billiards with his fingers. The other one I think his name is Ferguson—he's on his own horse; he's so rich he doesn't know what to do with his money, and he's got three horses here; he only had to hire two. But he can't ride much. ”

“ Tom, driving down to the village, as was her custom, stopped at the hotel to see the Bird of Prey, or some other of her new friends, and incidentally carried Jack off for a drive. The day after, Turner went fishing, and Mrs. Tom passed most of the day with the hotellites. The third day it was much the same; on the fourth, I was invited to dinner at the Brinckerhoffs, who were Turner's first-cousins, and after dinner old Mrs. Brinckerhoff took me aside and asked me plumply if it was true that Tom's wife was associating so freely with "these people." ”

“ It was ten years before I saw Northoak again, and it was only an idle impulse that took me there. I had three or four last days at the end of a vacation in the mountains. My party had disbanded; no one expected me in New York before the next Monday. It came into my head to stop at Northoak on my way back, to whip the trout-streams after my own fashion—a luxury I cannot indulge in when there are professional-amateur anglers to wither me with their scorn. Yes, I take a book in my pocket, and if the trout will not have me, I lie down under a tree and walk the London streets with Mr. ”

“ The hotel-keepers of the day were not so wise in the matter of feathers as our experienced landlords of 1889.
•••••
On this August day of which I speak, the hotellites had some merrymaking afoot which awakened interest even among the people of the estates. Between the large contingent from the West and Southwest, and the minority from the Eastern and Middle States, there was a certain rivalry in all things, and each side had its leaders and champions. Two of these rivals (among the younger sets) were Jack Mowatt, of New York, and Clayton Adriance, of Kentucky. ”