John Henry Smith

by W. W. Jacobs

  ENTRY NO. XI

  THE BARN DANCE

  We gave Mr. Harding a great reception when he appeared on the veranda,arrayed in garments furnished by our host. I have an idea Mr. Bishop'swardrobe was about exhausted when the two of them had completed theirtoilet.

  "What do you think of me?" demanded Harding, striking a pose.

  He obtained a variety of opinions. They were unable to find a "boiledshirt" with an eighteen inch neck band or collar, so a blue gingham onewas made to do service. The only coat broad enough across the shoulderswas a "Prince Albert," in which Bishop had been married, and Hardingadmitted the combination was not exactly _de rigeur_. The trouserswere woefully tight at the waist, and were inches too long.

  "You are lucky to get anything," declared Mrs. Harding, retying thewonderful red and yellow scarf and vainly attempting to smooth out someof the wrinkles in the coat. "You should be made to go home and to bedwithout your supper."

  "You surely are the real goods, Governor," said Chilvers, walking abouthim and inspecting his costume from all angles. "What show have Marshalland the rest of us at to-night's dance against you?"

  "What do you think of me?"]

  Miss Lawrence pinned a bunch of nasturtiums on his coat, and we allstood and hilariously admired him. Bishop called him aside and motionedme to join them.

  "Mother and I don't know what to do about Wallace," our host said, afterhesitating a moment. "He's our hired man, you know," he added.

  "What about him?" asked Harding.

  "He's always eaten with us," Bishop said. "He's a quiet, well-behavedsorter chap, and he's company for us, but mother is afraid it wouldn'tbe just the thing to have him at the table when company's here, and so Ithought I'd ask you and Jack. We don't have folks here very often, and Iwanter do what's right."

  "You have him sit right down with us," promptly advised Harding. "Ifthere's anybody in this country who has a right to eat good and plentyit's a hired man. If any of our folks don't like it, let them wait untilthe second table."

  That settled it, and I could see that Bishop was pleased over theoutcome.

  "I sorter hated to tell Wallace to wait," he said to me after Hardinghad turned away. "It might offend him. He's a queer fish, but has themakings of the best hired man in the county."

  When we entered the big dining-room Wallace was sitting in one cornerreading. He laid aside the book, arose and bowed slightly. Harding wentright up to him.

  "Mr. Wallace, I believe," he said, shaking hands. "My name's Harding,and I'll introduce you to the rest of us." And he did.

  This young Scotchman is a handsome chap. His features are those of Byronin his early manhood. His hair is dark and wavy as it falls back from asmooth high forehead. He is tall, broad of shoulder and singularly easyand graceful in his movements. He certainly looks like a man who hasseen better days.

  I am still inclined to my original opinion that he is some college chapwho is trying to get a financial start so as to enter on his chosenprofession.

  He sat opposite me, and not until the first course was served did Inotice that he was to the right of Miss Lawrence, with LaHume to herleft. When I first observed this trio Miss Lawrence and Wallace alreadywere engaged in a spirited conversation--or, more properly speaking,Miss Lawrence was.

  There was a babble of voices and of laughter, and I could make outlittle they were saying during the early part of the dinner, though Iwas so impolite as to attempt to do so. Miss Lawrence was praising thescenic beauties of Woodvale and its environs, he adding a word or asentence now and then with the tact of one pleased to listen to thechatter of a charming companion. The trace of Scotch in his enunciationwas so slight as to defy reproduction, but it was sufficient to stampthe place of his nativity.

  LaHume made several attempts to join in their conversation, and thoughWallace lent him all possible aid Miss Lawrence effectually discouragedLaHume's participation. He reminded me of a boy making ineffectualattempts to "catch on behind" a swift-moving sleigh, and who is finallytumbled on his head for his pains.

  Mrs. Bishop is famous the country round as a cook, and she excelledherself that afternoon. Bishop is a crank on truck gardening, and thevegetables served would have taken prizes in any exhibit. A delicioussoup was followed by a baked sea trout--I must not forget to ask Mrs.Bishop how she made that sauce.

  I wonder why it is that the most skilled hotel chefs cannot fry springchicken so as to faintly imitate the culinary wonders attained by acapable housewife?

  "I want to ask you a question, Mrs. Bishop," said Mr. Harding, after hehad made a pretense of refusing a third helping of fried chicken. "Didyou really raise these chickens on this farm?"

  Mrs. Bishop smiled and said they did.

  "I don't believe it," he returned. "If the truth were known they litdown here from heaven, and Jim Bishop nailed them and you cooked them."

  I was ashamed of Chilvers. He ate seven ears of green corn and boastedof it, but I will admit I did not know it was possible to produce cornsuch as was served at that farmhouse dinner. The crisp sliced cucumbers,the ice-cold tomatoes, the succulent hearts of lettuce, the steamingdishes of string beans, summer squash, and green peas--it makes mehungry as I write of that simple but excellent feast.

  I thought as we sat there of the democracy of that little gathering.There was Harding, the multi-millionaire railway magnate, in his hickoryshirt; the fastidious and monocled Carter with his wealth and boastedNew England ancestry; Miss Lawrence, an heiress in whose veins flowedthe purest blood of the southern aristocracy; Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, plainhonest folk from 'way down east in Maine; and the unknown Wallace,driven no doubt by stress of poverty from the hills of his belovedcountry--there we all were meeting one another as equals, enjoying thebounties Nature has so lavishly bestowed on her children.

  I caught Miss Harding's eye, and she smiled as if in sympathy with mywandering thoughts. It takes a remarkably pretty young woman to losenone of her charm while eating green corn off the cob, but Miss Hardingtriumphantly stands that test. She was talking to Marshall, who is soconstitutionally slow that he is invariably half a course behindeveryone else at a table.

  Marshall was attempting to explain to Miss Harding how it is possible tohook a ball and play off the right foot. He laid out a diagram on thetable cloth, using "lady-fingers" to show the positions of the feet, around radish to indicate the ball, and a fruit knife to illustrate theface and direction of the club.

  Chilvers watched this most unconventional dinner performance with a grinon his face, and just as Marshall was showing just how the club shouldfollow through, Chilvers called "Fore!" in a sharp tone. Miss Hardingand Marshall were so absorbed in the elucidation of this most difficultgolf problem that they instinctively dodged, and when Miss Hardingrecovered, her cheeks were delightfully crimson.

  I never noticed until that moment that there are traces of dimples inher cheeks. Unless Venus had dimples she had no just claim to be crownedthe goddess of love and beauty.

  "Jim," said Mr. Harding, addressing our host, when coffee was served,"did you know our friend Smith when he was a kid?"

  "Knew him when he couldn't look over this table," replied Mr. Bishop.

  "What kind of a boy was he?"

  "Full of the Old Nick, like most healthy boys," he answered. "He and myboy Joe went to school together, got into trouble together and got outof it again. What was it the boys used to call you, Jack?" he said tome, a twinkle in his eye.

  "Never mind," I said, and attempted to turn the conversation, but it wasno use.

  "They used to call him 'Socks Smith,'" said Bishop. "That was it, 'SocksSmith.' I hadn't thought of it in years."

  "What an alliterative nickname," laughed Mrs. Chilvers. "How did youever acquire it, Mr. Smith?"

  "He won't tell ye," declared my tormentor, without waiting for me to saya word, "but it's nothin' to his discredit. You know that mill pondwhere--"

  "Don't tell that incident," I protested.

  "Tell it! Tell it, Mr. Bishop!"
pleaded Miss Lawrence, Miss Harding, andothers in chorus.

  "Sure I'll tell it," continued Bishop. "As I was saying, you all knowthe mill pond where you folks try to drive golf balls over. Well, ituster be bigger an' deeper than it is now, and in the winter it was theskating place for all the lads in the neighbourhood. Up at the far endthere is a spring, and even in the coldest weather it don't freeze overabove that spring."

  "One bitter cold day--and it never gets cold enough to keep boys offsmooth ice--young Smith, here--he was about twelve or fourteen years oldat that time--was out on the ice with his skates on, wrapped up in anovercoat, a comforter over his ears and thick mittens on his hands,skatin' around that pond with my boy Joe and other lads, all of themthinkin' they was havin' the time of their lives. Mother, what was thename of that poor family that lived over in the old Bobbins' house atthe time?"

  "Andersons," said Mrs. Bishop.

  "That's right; Andersons," continued the Boswell of my infantileexploits. "Well, these Andersons were so poor they didn't have anyskates, but some of the boys had let them take a sled, and two of theselittle Anderson kids were slidin' around on the ice and havin' all thefun they could, even if they didn't have skates. I suppose their toeswas as cold and their noses as blue, and that's half of skatin' orsleighin'."

  "Smith, Joe, and the other skaters were on the southwest end of the pondplayin' 'pigeon goal,' and these poor Anderson kids were slidin' aroundup at the other end where they would be out of the way. The wind wasblowin' pretty hard, and I suppose they were careless; anyhow a guststruck them and swept them along into that air hole."

  "They yelled as best they could, and some boys who were near themhollered, and the boys who were skating heard them and came tearingalong to see what was the matter. Jack Smith, here, was fixing a strapor somethin', and was the last one to get started. The whole bunch ofthem were standin' 'round watching those poor Anderson kids drown, soscared they didn't know what to do. The poor little tots were hangingonto the sled right out in the middle of an open space about thirtyyards wide."

  "Jack ... never stopped a second"]

  "Jack, here, never stopped a second. He saw what was up as he cameskatin' along, and he legged it all the harder, and in he went--skates,overcoat, comforter, mittens and all. It's no easy job swimmin' withsuch an outfit, to say nothin' of rescuin' two half-drowned youngsters,and I don't know how he did it, and I don't reckon you do either, Jack.But anyhow, he got to them, paddled along to the edge of the ice, andheld on to them until the other boys pushed out boards and finally gotthe whole caboodle of 'em up on solid ice."

  "Bully for you, Smith!" exclaimed Chilvers, "didn't know it was inyou."

  "Mr. Chilvers is jealous of you," declared Miss Lawrence. "I think itwas real heroic."

  "So do I," asserted Miss Harding, "but I cannot imagine how you acquiredso absurd a nickname as 'Socks Smith' from that incident."

  "Was the water cold?" asked Marshall.

  "I hav'n't finished my story," said Mr. Bishop, after these and othercomments had-been made. "I reckon the water was some cold, and the aircolder; at any rate I happened along in my wagon just as they weredraggin' them out, and before I could get them up to Smith's father'shouse the whole bunch of them was frozen so stiff that I had to pack 'eminto the kitchen like so much cordwood."

  "But boys of that age are tough, and when they had been thawed out,boiled in hot baths, and blistered with mustard poultices they was asgood as new, and I reckon the Anderson kids was a mighty sight cleanerthan they had been since the last time they went in swimmin'."

  "Now, as I said before, these Andersons were desperate poor, but theywere good folks, and what you might call appreciative. Jack had savedthe lives of two of the family, and they wanted to show what theythought of him in some way or other. There was twelve children in theAnderson family, six boys and six girls, and the older girls and the oldlady went to work, and blamed if they didn't knit a dozen pair ofwoollen socks and sent them to Jack as a Christmas present."

  "And that is how Jack got the name of 'Socks Smith,'" concluded Mr.Bishop, when the laughter had subsided. "For riskin' his life he got allthose nice warm socks and a nickname that uster make him so darned madthat I suppose he's had a hundred fights on account of it, and I'm notcertain he won't poke me in the jaw when he gets me alone for tellin'this yarn on him."

  "This darned woollen yarn," observed Marshall.

  "You're all right, Socks," declared Chilvers. "I only wish I could getas good a press agent as our friend Bishop. When I was a kid I used topush 'em into the pond and run, and let someone else fish them out."

  "If a man were to do an act as brave as that," asserted Miss Harding,"the world would acclaim him a hero, and not pile ridicule on him."

  "All of which proves that no boy is a hero to another boy," commentedMr. Harding, "and that is as it should be. Boys get their heroes out ofbooks, and as a rule they are fighters and pirates rather than of theself-sacrificing type."

  I was glad when Miss Lawrence changed the topic of conversation.

  "What do you think?" she exclaimed, addressing no one in particular, "Ihave discovered that Mr. Wallace knows how to play golf, and that helearned the game on some of the famous old courses of Scotland. He haspromised to teach me the St. Andrews swing."

  LaHume's face was a study as Miss Lawrence made this rather startlingannouncement. Surprise, disgust, and anger were reflected in his eyesand in the lines of his mouth.

  "You have played St. Andrews?" asked Carter of Wallace.

  "Yes, many a time," said this remarkable "hired man." "I was bornhard-by the old town," he added.

  "Indeed?" sneered LaHume. "What were you while there; caddy orprofessional?"

  I thought I detected a flash of anger in the eyes of the youngScotchman, but if offended he controlled himself admirably. Not so withMiss Lawrence, who glared indignantly at LaHume.

  "I doubt if I knew enough of the game," said Wallace, quietly, "to beeither. I merely played there and at other places when I had theopportunity."

  "Mr. Wallace says that St. Andrews does not compare with some of thenewer links in Scotland," declared Miss Lawrence, ignoring LaHume.

  "Which ones, for instance?" asked Carter, who has played over most ofthe fine courses in Great Britain.

  "Muirfield and Prestwick offer better golf than St. Andrews, and arenot so crowded," replied Wallace. "The farther you get from St. Andrewsthe greater its reputation, but it is too rough for perfect golf. Along, straight drive is often penalised by a bad lie, and an indifferentshot favoured by a good one, which is more luck than golf."

  Carter smiled, and he afterwards told me it struck him as odd that afarmhand should converse in such words and on so peculiar a topic.Wallace good-naturedly and modestly answered a number of questions, butevaded telling the class of his game.

  I wonder where Miss Lawrence will receive those lessons which willenable her to acquire the "St. Andrews swing"? I doubt if our rules willpermit this remarkable farm labourer to play over Woodvale, even as theguest or at the request of Miss Lawrence. I shall watch developmentswith much interest.

  Wallace asked to be excused, observing with a laugh that it was milkingtime, and a few minutes later we saw him pass the window, clad in blueoveralls and a "jumper."

  "Tell you what I'll do with you, LaHume," said Chilvers, who nevermisses an opportunity to stir up trouble. "I'll bet you a box ofHaskells that our Scotch friend, who is now out there milking, canoutdrive you twenty yards, and I never saw him with a club in hishands."

  "I am not his rival in that or in any other capacity," warmly declaredLaHume.

  At this instant our hostess arose, giving the signal that the dinner wasended, and we adjourned to the lawn. LaHume said something to MissLawrence; she laughed scornfully, and left him and joined Miss Harding.

  After cigars and pipes we inspected the new red barn. It is a hugestructure, modern in every particular, and Bishop was properly proud ofit. The lofts were partially filled with sweet
clover hay, and the odourcombined with that of the new pine lumber was delicious. The floor hadbeen planed smooth, and oiled and waxed so as to make an excellent spacefor dancing. The uprights were twined with ivy and decorated with wildflowers, and the effect was pleasing.

  The guests were already arriving in all sorts of vehicles, from farmwagons to automobiles.

  An "orchestra" of five pieces was on hand, and the musicians took theirplaces beneath a cluster of Chinese lanterns. There were fully a hundredon the floor at nine o'clock, when Mr. Harding and Mrs. Bishop led offin the grand march. I had secured Miss Harding as my partner, and LaHumeand Miss Lawrence were behind us. Carter was with some village beauty,but I saw nothing of Wallace in the grand march.

  Later he appeared and danced a waltz with Miss Ross, and they made ahandsome couple. The "hired man" was as well dressed as any gentleman inthe room, and I have never seen a more graceful dancer than that tall,young Scotchman. LaHume watched him like a hawk. When Wallace claimedMiss Lawrence for a schottische the glum LaHume stood by the door andlooked as if he would rather fight than dance. Chilvers told him he wasmaking an ass of himself.

  It was a glorious night beneath the radiance of a full moon whichsilvered the lace-work of a mackerel sky. I never fully realised whatdancing was until Miss Harding favoured me with a polka. And then wewandered out into the moonlight, talked about the moon, and hunted forthe Great Dipper.

  Even a plain woman looks pretty when with eyes and chin lifted she gazesat the star-studded heavens, her face profiled against the gleaming orbof a full moon, but no words of mine can describe the splendid beauty ofMiss Harding in that attitude. I tried to think of something to say, butwas under a spell and could think of nothing, and it was perhaps just aswell. I composed some ripping good sentences before I went to sleep thatnight, but it was too late to use them, and I shall not record themhere.

  And then we met Wallace and Miss Lawrence, her arm drawn through his,her face lifted toward his, and her tongue going when she was notlaughing. They were "walking out" a dance, and evidently enjoying it.

  Mr. Harding had the time of his life. He danced with stout farm wives,slender village maidens, and executed a clog dance which made the barnshudder on its foundations. He led the singing, told stories to groupsof farmers who shouted with laughter, and refused to go home until Mrs.Harding took him by the arm and fairly dragged him away.

  I walked home with Miss Harding.

  "Mr. Harding ... executed a clog dance"]