CHAPTER XVIII
Mother had, after an energetic September, succeeded in putting all the furniture to rights and in evoking curtains and linen. Anybody, even the impractical Father, can fill a house with furniture, but it takes two women and at least four weeks to make the furniture look as though it had grown there. She had roamed the fields, and brought home golden-rod and Michaelmas daisies and maple leaves. She no longer panted or felt dizzy when she ran up the stairs. She was a far younger woman than the discreet brown hermit of the dusty New York flat, just as the new Father, who had responsibility and affairs, was younger than the Pilkings clerk of old.
Always she watched for Father's home-coming. He usually came prancing home so happily that, one evening, when Mother saw him slowly plod down the street, his head low, his hands sagging his pockets, she ran out to the porch and greeted him with a despairing, "What is it, Seth?"
"Oh, nothing much." Before he would go on, Father put his arm about her ample waist and led her to the new porch-swing overlooking the raw spaded patch of earth that would be a rose-garden some day-that already, to their imaginations, was brilliant with blossoms and alive with birds.
She observed him mutely, anxiously. He handed a letter to her. It was in their daughter's handwriting:
DEAR PAPA AND MAMA:
I don't know if this letter will reach you, but have been
reading pieces in Saserkopee &N. Y. papers about your goings-on
and hear you are at a town called Lipsittsville, oh how could
you run away from the beautiful home Harris &I gave you, I am
sure if there was anything we didn't do for y'r comfort happiness you had only to ask &here you go and make us a
laughing stock in Saserkopee, we had told everyone you would be
at our party &suddenly you up &disappear &it has taken us
months to get in touch with you, such a wicked, untruthful lie
about friend sick in Boston &all. Harris heard from a traveling
salesman, &he agreed with Harris how thoughtless and wilful you
are, &he told Harris that you are at this place Lipsittsville,
so I will address you there &try &see if letter reaches you tell you that though you must be ashamed of your conduct by now,
we are willing to forgive &forget, I was never one to hold a
grudge. I am sure if you had just stopped and thought you would
have realized to what worry and inconvenience you have put us,
&if this does reach you, by now I guess you will have had
enough of being bums or pedestrians or whatever fancy name you
call yourself, and be glad to come back to a good home and see
if you can't show a little sense as you ought to at your time of
life, &just think of what the effect must be on Harry when his
very own grand-parents acts this way! If you will telegraph me,
or write me if you have not got enough money for telegraphing,
Harris will come for you, &we will see what can be done for
you. We think and hope that a place can be found for you in the
Cyrus K. Ginn Old People's Home, where you can spend your last
days, I guess this time you will want to behave yourselves, and
Harris &I will be glad to have you at our home from time to
time. After all my love &thoughtfulness for you-but I guess I
need not say anything more, by this time you will have learned
your lesson.
Your loving daughter,
LULU.
Father and Mother had sat proudly on their porch the night before, and they had greeted passers-by chattily, like people of substance, people healthy and happy and responsible. Now they shrank on the swing; they saw nothing but Lulu's determined disdain for their youthful naughtiness; heard nothing but her voice, hard, unceasing, commenting, complaining; and the obese and humorless humor of Mr. Harris Hartwig.
"She can't make us go back-confine us in this here home for old folks, can she, legally?" It was Mother who turned to Father for reassurance.
"No, no. Certainly not.... I don't think so." They sat still. They seemed old again.
Just before dinner he started up from the swing, craftily laid his finger beside his nose, and whispered something very exciting and mysterious to Mother, who kept saying: "Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, I'd be willing to. Though it would be hard." Immediately after dinner they walked sedately down the village street, while blackbirds whistled from the pond and children sang ancient chants of play under the arc-lights at corners, and neighbors cried "'Evenin'" to them, from chairs on porches. They called upon the town newspaperman, old Lyman Ford, and there was a conference with much laughter and pounding of knees-also a pitcher of lemonade conjointly prepared by Mrs. S. Appleby and Mrs. L. Ford. Finally the Applebys paraded to the telegraph-office, and to Mr. Harris Hartwig, at Saserkopee, they sent this message:
Come see us when can. Wire at once what day and train. Will
meet.
A sodden and pathetic figure, in his notorious blue-flannel shirt, and the suit, or the unsuit, which he had worn into Lipsittsville in the days when he had been a hobo, Father waited for the evening train and for Mr. Harris Hartwig.
Mr. Hartwig descended the car steps like a general entering a conquered province. Father nervously concealed his greasy shirt-front with his left hand, and held out his right hand deprecatingly. Mr. Hartwig took it into his strong, virile, but slightly damp, clasp, and held it (a thing which Father devoutly hated) while he gazed magnanimously into Father's shy eyes and, in a confidential growl which could scarce have been heard farther away than Indianapolis, condescended: "Well, here we are. I'm glad there's an end to all this wickedness and foolishness at last. Where's Mother Appleby?"
"She wasn't feeling jus' like coming," Father mumbled. "I'll take you to her."
"How the devil are you earning a living?"
"Why, the gent that owns the biggest shoe-store here was so kind as to give me sort of work round the store like."
"Yuh, as porter, I'll venture! You might just as well be sensible, for once in your life, Father, and learn that you're past the age where you can insist and demand and get any kind of work, or any kind of a place to live in, that just suits your own sweet-fancy. Business ain't charity, you know, and all these working people that think a business is run just to suit them-! And that's why you ought to have been more appreciative of all Lulu did for you-and then running away and bringing her just about to the verge of nervous prostration worrying over you!"
They had left the station, now, and were passing along Maple Avenue, with its glory of trees and shining lawns, the new Presbyterian church and the Carnegie Library. Mr. Hartwig of Saserkopee was getting far too much satisfaction out of his rôle as sage and counselor to notice Maple Avenue. He never had the chance to play that rôle when the wife of his bosom was about.
"Another thing," Mr. Hartwig was booming, as they approached the row of bungalows where the Applebys lived, "you ought to have understood the hardship you were bringing on Mother by taking her away from our care-and you always pretending to be so fond of her and all. I don't want to rub it in or nothing, but I always did say that I was suspicious of these fellows that are always petting and stewing over their wives in public-you can be dead sure that in private they ain't got any more real consideration 'n' thoughtfulness for 'em than-than anything. And you can see for yourself now-Here you are. Why, just one look at you is enough to show you're a failure! Why, my garbage-man wears a better-looking suit than that!"
Though Father felt an acute desire to climb upon a convenient carriage-block and punch the noble Roman head of Mr. Harris Hartwig, he kept silent and looked as meek as he could and encouraged his dear son-in-law to go on.