They ended by agreeing to try it out for a week, beginning with the morning, when everybody was to be down for breakfast by seven-thirty. Mr. Thoburn got up and made a speech, protesting that they didn't know what they were letting themselves in for, and ended up by demanding to know if he was expected to breakfast at seven-thirty.
"Yes, or earlier," Mr. Pierce said pleasantly. "I suppose you could have something at seven."
"And suppose I refuse?" he retorted disagreeably.
But everybody turned on him, and said if they could do it, he could, and he sat down again. Then somebody suggested that if they were to get up they'd have to go to bed, and the party broke up.
Doctor Barnes helped me gather up the clam shells and the plates.
"It's a risky business," he said. "To-night doesn't mean anything; they're carried away by the reaction and the desire for something new. The next week will tell the tale."
"If we could only get rid of Mr. Thoburn!" I exclaimed. Doctor Barnes chuckled.
"We may not get rid of him," he said, "but I can promise him the most interesting week of his life. He'll be too busy for mischief. I'm going to take six inches off his waist line."
Well, in a half-hour or so I had cleared away, and I went out to the lobby to lock up the news stand. Just as I opened the door from the back hall, however, I heard two people talking.
It was Miss Pat and Mr. Pierce. She was on the stairs and he in the hall below, looking up.
"I don't WANT to stay!" she was saying.
"But don't you see?" he argued. "If you go, the others will. Can't you try it for a week?"
"I quite understand your motive," she said, looking down at him more pleasantly than she'd ever done, "and it's very good of you and all that. But if you'd only left things as they were, and let us all go, and other people come—"
"That's just it," he said. "I'm told it's the bad season and nobody else would come until Lent. And, anyhow, it's not business to let a lot of people go away mad. It gives the place a black eye."
"Dear me," she said, "how businesslike you are growing!"
He went over close to the stairs and dropped his voice.
"If you want the bitter truth," he went on, trying to smile, "I've put myself on trial and been convicted of being a fool and a failure. I've failed regularly and with precision at everything I have tried. I've been going around so long trying to find a place that I fit into, that I'm scarred as with many battles. And now I'm on probation—for the last time. If this doesn't go, I—I—"
"What?" she asked, leaning down to him. "You'll not—"
"Oh, no," he said, "nothing dramatic, of course. I could go around the country in a buggy selling lightning-rods—"
She drew herself back as if she resented his refusal of her sympathy.
"Or open a saloon in the Philippines!" he finished mockingly. "There's a living in that."
"You are impossible," she said, and turned away.
Oh, I haven't any excuse to make for him! I think he was just hungry for her sympathy and her respect, knowing nothing else was coming to him. But the minute they grew a bit friendly he seemed to remember the prince, and that, according to his idea of it, she was selling herself, and he would draw off and look at her in a mocking unhappy way that made me want to slap him.
He watched her up the stairs and then turned and walked to the fire, with his hands in his pockets and his head down.
I closed the news stand and he came over just as I was hanging up the cigar-case key for Amanda King in the morning. He reached up and took the key off its nail.
"I'll keep that," he said. "It's no tobacco after this, Minnie."
"You can't keep them here, then," I retorted. "They've got to smoke; it's the only work they do."
"We'll see," he said quietly. "And—oh, yes, Minnie, now that we shall not be using the mineral spring—"
"Not use the mineral spring!" I repeated, stupefied.
"Certainly NOT!" he said. "This is a drugless sanatorium, Minnie, from now on. That's part of the theory—no drugs."
"Well, I'll tell you one thing," I snapped, "theory or no theory, you've got to have drugs. No theory that I ever heard of is going to cure Mr. Moody's indigestion and Miss Cobb's neuralgia."
"They won't have indigestion and neuralgia."
"Or Amanda King's toothache."
"We won't have Amanda King."
He put his elbow on the stand and smiled at me.
"Listen, Minnie," he said. "If you hadn't been wasting your abilities in the mineral spring, I'd be sorry to close it. But there will be plenty for you to do. Don't you know that the day of the medicine-closet in the bath-room and the department-store patent-remedy counter is over? We've got sanatoriums now instead of family doctors. In other words, we put in good sanitation systems and don't need the plumber and his repair kit."
"The pharmacy?" I said between my teeth.
"Closed also. No medicine, Minnie. That's our slogan. This is the day of prophylaxis. The doctors have taken a step in the right direction and are giving fewer drugs. Christian Science has abolished drugs and established the healer. We simply abolish the healer."
"If we're not going to use the spring-house, we might have saved the expense of the new roof in the fall," I said bitterly.
"Not at all. For two hours or so a day the spring-house will be a rest-house—windows wide open and God's good air penetrating to fastnesses it never knew before."
"The spring will freeze!"
"Exactly. My only regret is that it is too small to skate on. But they'll have the ice pond."
"When I see Mr. Moody skating on the ice pond," I said sarcastically, "I'll see Mrs. Moody dead with the shock on the bank."
"Not at all," he replied calmly. "You'll see her skating, too." And with that he went to bed.
CHAPTER XXIV
LIKE DUCKS TO WATER
They took to it like ducks take to water. Not, of course, that they didn't kick about making their own beds and having military discipline generally. They complained a lot, but when after three days went by with the railroad running as much on schedule as it ever does, they were all still there, and Mr. Jennings had limped out and spent a half-hour at the wood-pile with his gouty foot on a cushion, I saw it was a success.
I ought to have been glad. I was, although when Mrs. Dicky found they were all staying, and that she might have to live in the shelter-house the rest of the winter, there was an awful scene. I was glad, too, every time I could see Mr. Thoburn's gloomy face, or hear the things he said when his name went up for the military walk.
(Oh yes, we had a blackboard in the hall, and every morning each guest looked to see if it was wood-pile day or military-walk day. At first, instead of wood-pile, it was walk-clearing day, but they soon had the snow off all the paths.)
As I say, I was glad. It looked as if the new idea was a success, although as Doctor Barnes said, nobody could really tell until new people began to come. That was the real test. They had turned the baths into a gymnasium and they had beginners' classes and advanced classes, and a prize offered on the blackboard of a cigar for the man who made the most muscular improvement in a week. The bishop won it the first week, being the only one who could lie on his back and raise himself to a sitting position without helping himself with his hands. As Mrs. Moody said, it would be easy enough if somebody only sat on one's feet to hold them down.
But I must say I never got over the shock of seeing the spring-house drifted with snow, all the windows wide open, the spring frozen hard, and people sitting there during the rest hour, in furs and steamer rugs, trying to play cards with mittens on—their hands, not the cards, of course—and not wrangling. I was lonesome for it!
I hadn't much to do, except from two to four to be at the spring-house, and to count for the deep-breathing exercise. Oh, yes, we had that, too! I rang a bell every half-hour and everybody got up, and I counted slowly "one" and they breathed in through their noses, and "two" and they exhaled quickly thro
ugh their mouths. I guess most of them used more of their lungs than they ever knew they had.
Well, everybody looked better and felt better, although they wouldn't all acknowledge it. Miss Cobb suffered most, not having the fire log to curl her hair with. But as she said herself, between gymnasium and military walks, and the silence hour, and eating, which took a long time, everybody being hungry—and going to bed at nine, she didn't see how she could have worried with it, anyhow. The fat ones, of course, objected to an apple and a cup of hot water for breakfast, but except Mr. Thoburn, they all realized it was for the best. He wasn't there for his health, he said, having never had a sick day in his life, but when he saw it was apple and hot water or leave, he did like Adam—he took the apple.
The strange thing of all was the way they began to look up to Mr. Pierce. He was very strict; if he made a rule, it was obey or leave. (As they knew after Mr. Moody refused to take the military walk, and was presented with his bill and a railroad schedule within an hour. He had to take the military walk with Doctor Barnes that afternoon alone.) They had to respect a man who could do all the things in the gymnasium that they couldn't, and come in from a ten or fifteen-mile tramp through the snow and take a cold plunge and a swim to rest himself.
It was on Monday that we really got things started, and on Monday afternoon Miss Summers came out to the shelter-house in a towering rage.
"Where's Mr. Pierce?" she demanded.
"I guess you can see he isn't here," I said.
"Just wait until I see him!" she announced. "Do you know that I am down on the blackboard for the military walk to-day?
"Why not?"
She turned and glared at me. "Why not?" she repeated. "Why, the audacity of the wretch! He brings me out into the country in winter to play in his atrocious play, strands me, and then tells me to walk twenty miles a day and smile over it!" She came over to me and shook my arm. "Not only that," she said, "but he has cut out my cigarettes and put Arabella on dog biscuit—Arabella, who can hardly eat a chicken wing."
"Well, there's something to be thankful for," I said. "He didn't put you on dog biscuit."
She laughed then, with one of her quick changes of humor.
"The worst of it is," she said, in a confidential whisper, "I'll do it. I feel it. I guess if the truth were known I'm some older than he is, but—I'm afraid of him, Minnie. Little Judy is ready to crawl around and speak for a cracker or a kind word. Oh, I'm not in love with him, but he's got the courage to say what he means and do what he says."
She went to the door and looked back smiling.
"I'm off for the wood-pile," she called back. "And I've promised to chop two inches off my heels."
As I say, they took to it like ducks to water—except two of them, von Inwald and Thoburn. Mr. von Inwald stayed on, I hardly know why, but I guess it was because Mr. Jennings still hadn't done anything final about settlements, and with the newspapers marrying him every day it wasn't very comfortable. Next to him, Mr. Thoburn was the unhappiest mortal I have ever seen. He wouldn't leave, and with Doctor Barnes carrying out his threat to take six inches off his waist, he stopped measuring window-frames with a tape line and took to measuring himself.
I came across him on Wednesday—the third day—straggling home from the military walk. He and Mr. von Inwald limped across the tennis-court and collapsed on the steps of the spring-house while the others went on to the sanatorium. I had been brushing the porch, and I leaned on my broom and looked at them.
"You're both looking a lot better," I said. "Not so—well, not so beer-y. How do you like it by this time?"
"Fine!" answered Mr. Thoburn. "Wouldn't stay if I didn't like it."
"Wouldn't you?"
"But I'll tell you this, Minnie," he said, changing his position with a groan to look up at me, "somebody ought to warn that young man. Human nature can stand a lot but it can't stand everything. He's overdoing it!"
"They like it," I said.
"They think they do," he retorted. "Mark my words, Minnie, if he adds another mile to the walk to-morrow there will be a mutiny. Kingdoms may be lost by an extra blister on a heel."
Mr. von Inwald had been sitting with his feet straight out, scowling, but now he turned and looked at me coolly.
"All that keeps me here," he said, "is Minnie's lovely hair. It takes me mentally back home, Minnie, to a lovely lady—may I have a bit of it to keep by me?"
"You may not," I retorted angrily.
"Oh! The lovely lady—but never mind that. For the sake of my love for you, Minnie, find me a cigarette, like a good girl! I am desolate."
"There's no tobacco on the place," I said firmly, and went on with my sweeping.
"When I was a boy," Mr. Thoburn remarked, looking out thoughtfully over the snow, "we made a sort of cigarette out of corn-silk. You don't happen to have any corn-silk about, do you, Minnie?"
"No," I said shortly. "If you take my advice, Mr. Thoburn, you'll go back to town. You can get all the tobacco you want there—and you're wasting your time here." I leaned on my broom and looked down at him, but he was stretching out his foot and painfully working his ankle up and down.
"Am I?" he asked, looking at his foot. "Well, don't count on it too much, Minnie. You always inspire me, and sitting here I've just thought of something."
He got up and hobbled off the porch, followed by Mr. von Inwald. I saw him say something to Mr. von Inwald, who threw back his head and laughed. Then I saw them stop and shake hands and go on again in deep conversation. I felt uneasy.
Doctor Barnes came out that afternoon and watched me while I closed the windows. He had a package in his hand. He sat on the railing of the spring and looked at me.
"You're not warmly enough dressed for this kind of thing," he remarked. "Where's that gray rabbits' fur, or whatever it is?"
"If you mean my chinchillas," I said, "they're in their box. Chinchillas are as delicate as babies and not near so plentiful. I'm warm enough."
"You look it." He reached over and caught one of my hands. "Look at that! Blue nails! It's about four degrees above zero here, and while the rest are wrapped in furs and steamer rugs, with hotwater bottles at their feet, you've got on a shawl. I'll bet you two dollars you haven't got on any—er—winter flannels."
"I never bet," I retorted, and went on folding up the steamer rugs.
"I'd like to help," he said, "but you're so darned capable, Miss Minnie—"
"You might see if you can get the slot-machine empty," I said. "It's full of water. It wouldn't work and Mr. Moody thought it was frozen. He's been carrying out boiling water all afternoon. If it stays in there and freezes the thing will explode."
He wasn't listening. He'd been fussing with his package and now he opened it and handed it to me, in the paper.
"It's a sweater," he said, not looking at me. "I bought it for myself and it was too small— Confound it, Minnie, I wish I could lie! I bought them for you! There's the whole business—sweater, cap, leggings and mittens. Go on! Throw them at me!"
But I didn't. I looked at them, all white and soft, and it came over me suddenly how kind people had been lately, and how much I'd been getting—the old doctor's waistcoat buttons and Miss Pat's furs, and now this! I just buried my face in them and cried.
Doctor Barnes stood by and said nothing. Some men wouldn't have understood, but he did. After a minute or so he came over and pulled the sweater out from the bundle.
"I'm glad you like 'em," he said, "but as I bought them at Hubbard's, in Finleyville, and as the old liar guaranteed they wouldn't shrink, we'd better not cry on 'em."
Well, I put them on and I was warmer and happier than I had been for some time. But that night when I went out to the shelter-house with the supper basket I found both the honeymooners in a wild state of excitement. They said that about five o'clock Thoburn had gone out to the shelter-house and walked all around it. Finally he had stopped at one of the windows of the other room, had worked at it with his penknife and got it open, and cr
awled through. They sat paralyzed with fright, and heard him moving around the other room, and he even tried their door. But it had been locked. They hadn't the slightest idea what he was doing, but after perhaps ten minutes he went away, going out the door this time and taking the key with him.
Mr. Dick had gone in when he was safely gone, but he could see nothing unusual, except that the door of the cupboard in the corner was standing open and there was a brand-new, folding, foot rule in it.
That day the bar was closed for good, and there was a good bit of fussing. To add to the trouble, that evening at dinner the pastries were cut off, and at eight o'clock a delegation headed by Senator Biggs visited Mr. Pierce in the office and demanded pastry put back on the menu and the stewed fruit taken off. But Mr. Pierce was firm and they came out pretty well subdued. It was that night, I think, that candles were put in the bedrooms, and all the electric lights were turned off at nine-thirty.
At ten o'clock I took my candle and went to Mr. Pierce's sitting-room door. I didn't think they'd stand much more and I wanted to tell him so. Nobody answered and I opened the door. He was asleep, face down on the hearth-rug in front of the fire. His candle was lighted on the floor beside him and near it lay a newspaper cutting crumpled in a ball. I picked it up. It was a list of the bridal party for Miss Patty's wedding.
I dropped it where I found it and went out and knocked again loudly. He wakened after a minute and came to the door with the candle in his hand.
"Oh, it's you, Minnie. Come in!"
I went in and put my candle on the table.
"I've got to talk to you," I said. "I don't mind admitting things have been going pretty well, but—they won't stand for the candles. You mark my words."
"If they'll stand for the bar being closed, why not the candles?" he demanded.
"Well," I said, "they can't have electric light sent up in boxes and labeled 'books,' but they can get liquor that way."
He whistled, and then he laughed.
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 71
