Teddie

“ But the fact that Gerry essayed little more than a stiff bow as he passed by did not greatly trouble Teddie, for about this time she fell secretly in love with an Episcopalian curate of delicate health and indescribably melancholy eyes, a young man with a face like a Shelley and an audible and asthmatic manner of breathing. And at the same time that he sobered Teddie down a great deal his health improved perceptibly under Teddie's arduous campaign of forced feeding. ”

“ Teddie patiently explained. “What I’ve been talking about is the spirit of the place, its aura.”
“Yes, I got a sniff of it as I came through that Italian settlement,” acknowledged Uncle Chandler. “And it was quite a penetrating aura.”
“But you’re only croaking out of a swamp of prejudices,” contended Teddie. “You don’t understand our ways of living or looking at life. You try to gauge Greenwich Village, which was once good enough for Poe and Masefield, by Fifth Avenue standards, and you get your numbers mixed.” She looked up at him with a more commiserative light in her earnest young eyes. ”

“ That was a great hour in the life of our over-ennuied Teddie, who, in fact, formed so substantial a friendship with those helmeted heroes that she was thereafter permitted to slide down the polished brass pole which led from the sleeping-quarters to the ground floor of the Fire Hall. So active was her interest in their burnished apparatus, and so dominating grew her hunger to hear the great red motors roar and see the Ladder-Truck wheels strike fire as they took the car-rails at the Avenue-crossing, that she turned in a quite unnecessary alarm. ”

“ CHAPTER TWELVE Teddie, once she was alone in her studio, experienced a sense of confinement, a feeling of compression, which had hitherto been absent from her newer mode of life. She felt the need for untrammelled movement through fresh air, the craving to get out into open spaces and leave the suffocation of city walls behind her. She promptly decided, in fact, to drive her car out to Tuxedo, and even went to the telephone to order it from the garage. Then she remembered that she no longer had a car. ”

“ Teddie studied him with solemn eyes. Then she studied the lengthening shadows along the valley-slope and the blue hills beyond.
"Because, Gerry, you're so different from other men," she finally acknowledged. ”

“ Teddie asked in amazement.
"Yes. It was my birthday yesterday; mother and father each gave me one, and Uncle Dick the other. You've only to say the word and two of them are yours. You have such a lot of pets, you won't miss your rabbits." ”

“ The whole party followed the direction of her gaze, to behold their mother accompanied by an elderly gentleman, inclined to portliness, wearing a short, iron-grey beard and moustache. Teddie, rubbing his eyes to observe the more surely, presently gave vent to a long, low whistle. ”

“ But the time came when Teddie was tired of golf, just as tired of making the rounds of her eighteen holes as she was of making the rounds of the circular ballroom of the Tuxedo Club with fox-trotting youngsters and sedately waltzing oldsters. She was tired of dinners at Table Rock, and tired of seeing the “No-One-Admitted-Without-Permit” signs, and tired of the Meadow Brook steeplechase, and tired of the stately and stupid dinners in town. She was tired of life and tired of even herself. ”

“ I shall just speak of our losses and the struggle that Teddie will have; and the advantage to him of a wife who has not been used to wealth. I will have that slap at my lady on the pedestal. She will not make a sign, you'll find, to us. She'll just sit and stare and say, 'Yes,' and 'No,' and 'Is that so” There won't be a word about Teddie's fortune, or her disappointment, or about breaking off the engagement. She'll just give a little shrug, and smile scornfully over her shoulder as she goes. The next day she'll write to Teddie, and go away, probably. As Jane says, she doesn't care for him ”

“ This was a question which Teddie found necessary to sit back and consider carefully.
“You see, Uncle Chandler, I’ve so much to unlearn! You can’t keep a girl under glass most of her life and then expect her to horn in where the dairy-lunchers learned the game in their infancy.”
The Major winced a little. Here was still another newness to disturb him, a newness not so much of phraseology as of outlook. ”

“ Hazel observed, in just defence of the roundly abused editor. "That is the worst of it. If he had been, well, a disagreeable sort of man, whom you strongly suspected of being ultra-critical and ill-natured, why, then, one would try again with a light heart. But, Teddie, I cannot help thinking he would have taken it if he could." ”

“ With Teddie the movies were still strictly taboo, but having secretly visited the Hippodrome with her Uncle Chandler, she became the victim of a brief but burning passion to go on the stage, preferably in tank-work, whereby she might startle the world through the grace of her aquatic feats. ”

“ For Uncle Chandler resolutely maintained, when Teddie was not in hearing, that the girl was a brick and a bit of a wonder, and that he hoped to heaven life wouldn’t tame her down to a chow-chow in permanent-wave and petticoats.
“The fact is,” he was in the habit of saying to Lydia Hayden, “I can’t possibly conceive how two every-day old oysters like you and Trummie ever came into possession of a high-stepper like Theodora”—though, mercifully, he never imparted this bit of information to Teddie herself. For Teddie was quite hard enough to live with, even as things were. ”

“ I suppose you couldn't get me a young walaby, the shed in the padock would be a great place to keep it in and it would amuze baby very much
"I remain
"Your afecshunate son
"Jimmie Redmond Walters."
"My Dear Mamma" (said the little pink paper) ,—"I hope you are quite well. I am quite well, I hope Teddie is quite well. I hope Teddie can eat things again. I have not been naughty for a long time. I hope Teddie has not been naughty for a long time. We had apple pie for dinner on one day. There was soap in the apple pie we had for dinner. I have a new tea-set. ”

“ But Major Chandler Kane, an uncle who stoutly maintained that obstreperous youth should not be faced as a virtue or a vice but as a fact, happened to be coming out for the week-end at about the same time, and intercepted Teddie at the railway station. ”

“ On reaching home, Teddie went straight to the drawing-room to find his mother. But a visitor was with her, and he had to wait before he could ask her to put on her hat and go out in the garden with him. He took up a book and sat down quietly. In a few minutes, however, his attention was caught by the conversation between the two ladies.
Mrs. Taylor, the visitor, told a sad story of a working-man, who, in consequence of an accident, had been unable to earn a penny for several weeks. His wife was also in bad health, and she and her seven young children were in great distress. Mrs. ”

“ Very sure he is one angel, Mr. Teddy! And he go up in the heavens with the wings! Oh little foolish godfather! Understand you not he is one aviator? And you must not be in anger when he give me the good things to eat. Perhaps in Amerique the cold cream is bad, but in Paris it make you not sick, on the contrary. I show not your letter to Mr. Teddy because you say for two cents you twist his nose and his eyes and it is not very genteel, dear godfather. When you think wickedness the bon Dieu punish you. ”

“ The major laughed. 'Don't bother your head about your size,' he said; 'you'll grow, and there's plenty of time before you.'
'I don't want to be a drummer,' said Teddy earnestly; 'I'd rather wait and be a proper soldier—a soldier that fights.'
'A capital decision—stick to it, little chap, and you have my hearty approval.'
'You have your father's blood in your veins,' said the colonel, laughing; 'meanwhile, I suppose you try your hand on the village boys, to content your fighting propensities.'
'No,' said Teddy, a grave look coming into his sunny blue eyes. ”

“ Teddy began to realize that the man told the truth, yet it cannot be said that his anger was abated, although a strong curiosity mingled with it.
"And what's yer raison for acting in that shtyle, to as good a man as iver asked God's blessing on a sunny morning, and who wouldn't tread on one of yer corns, that is, if yer big feet isn't all corns, like a toad's back, as I suspict, from the manner in which ye leaps over the ground."
"He knows who I am, and he knows he has given me good cause to remind him of my existence. He can tell you, if he chooses; I shall not. ”

“ Let my Teddy, even if she must stand alone, stand for all that is truest and best in women, and the young men and women around her will respect her and try to pull themselves up to her standard. You needn't be a prig, Ted. Be as full of fun as you can; the more, the better, only choose your fun carefully. Your old father knows what he's talking about, and he knows that girls have more influence than most of them are willing to use." [Pg 174]
Theodora's cheek was resting against her father's shoulder, and her eyes had drooped. ”

“ Indeed, Teddy had a suspicion that he saw the man draw his sleeve hurriedly across his eyes. Curiously, too, there was a sort of dull, heavy anger upon him as he made for the door.
"Come back ter the barrer, ole gal," he said, in a voice more husky even than usual. "An' don't fink that I was fergettin' the nipper—'cos I wasn't." Stopping awkwardly at the door, he came back to the boy. "As fer you, my nibs—you're a nobleman—that's wot you are. There ain't no flam abaht you, an' no partic'ler gas-works. It's a deal pleasanter ter fill a man's stummick than to fill 'is bloomin' 'ed. ”

“ Theodora looked up expectantly. She had an appetite for high-sounding names, and she had decided that Valentine Mortimer would just suit the present instance.
"Well, I'm Will Farrington; but everybody calls me Billy."
"Oh." Then Theodora unexpectedly began to laugh. "We ought to be good friends," she said; "for our names are about equally imposing. Billy and Teddy! Could anything be more prosaic? Good-by," she added, as she rose. "Truly, I must go home now."
Billy held out his hand. It looked rather white and thin, as Theodora's brown, strong fingers closed over it. ”

“ Teddy curled one foot under her, in the depths of the great easy-chair. "There must be two heroines, of course, and two,—no, three heroes."
"What'll you do with the odd one?" Billy asked.
"Kill him, to be sure." Theodora smacked her lips. "When the girl, his girl, you know, marries the wrong man, he will—" She paused and meditatively twisted the end of one of her long pigtails. ”

“ Then allow me to tell you he’ll get more of that at sea than he ever will at school.”
“Oh, father!” interrupted Teddy, who had been present all the time during the confab, listening as gravely as any judge to the discussion about his future, “do let me be a sailor! I’d rather go to sea than anything.”
“But you might be drowned, my boy,” said the vicar gravely, his thoughts wandering to every possible danger of the deep.
“No fear of that,” answered Teddy smiling. “Why, I can swim like a fish; and there’s Uncle Jack now, whom you all thought lost, safe and sound after all his voyages!” ”

“ Why did they come all the way to Santa Fé to do it? He thought again—and again and again—of that hint Maria had given him about Teddy and Revelita. Teddy too? He could not believe it. Teddy, who painted so well and talked so well and was so impatient of all this; just as impatient as he himself had been. Teddy never mentioned it. Would he never understand the rest of the people in the world? Was there nothing for it but to go on alone, travelling by himself through life? He looked disgustedly at Gin, just as she came to a late realization of his mood, and pulled herself away from Harvey. ”

“ And Teddy found the good rector's words come true. Days came when he tried his mother's patience much by his fractiousness and restlessness, and he was more often the vanquished than the conqueror.
Even Nancy one day remonstrated with him.
'You're nasty and cross to-day. No one pleases you.'
'I want to get out. I'm tired of this old kitchen.'
'If you can't get out, you can't. Being cross won't take you out.' This logic convinced, but did not comfort.
'I expect your Captain won't come near you when you're cross.' And then
Teddy burst out crying,—
'I'm not a soldier at all. ”

“ Here, reverting to more earthly topics, Nancy held up the cat arrayed in her sailor hat and jacket.
'Look, this is Jack Tar! Doesn't she make a jolly sailor?'
A gleeful, hearty peal of laughter came from Teddy, and was heard in the adjoining room by his grandmother with comfort. She called Mrs. John.
'Hear that, now! Why, he's getting quite himself again; it does him good to have a child to talk to. She must come again.'
And this Nancy did, and the roses began to come back to Teddy's cheeks, and then others of his playfellows were allowed to come and see him. ”

“ Billy answered.
But Theodora interposed.
"You needn't come, Patrick. I am going to take Mr. Will, myself." [Pg 80]
"Oh, I say, Teddy!" Billy straightened up in his chair.
"That's all right," she said gayly, as she pushed the chair away from the steps. "Let me do it, Billy; it's much nicer to go by ourselves without any Patrick, and I promise not to upset you."
"But you oughtn't to do it; 'tisn't the sort of thing a girl ought to do," he urged. "Truly, Teddy, I don't feel as if I could stand it, somehow." ”

“ Teddy bowed again, and then he set the chest on the ground, and drawing from his girdle an iron key he unlocked it and put back the lid. There was the paper circus, just as he and Harriett had cut it out: the acrobat and the lovely lady, the horses, the clown, the ring-master, — not one of them was left out.
With his magic wand, Teddy drew upon the ground a circle, and then, while everybody round craned and stretched their necks to see what he was about, he took out the figures and set them, one by one, in the ring. Then he waved his wand over them and cried “Abraca-dabraca-dee!” ”