Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Not either!” But here Florence, after instinctively placing her hands behind her, brought forth the right one to point, and simultaneously uttered a loud cry: “Oh, look at your hands!” For now she did look at Herbert’s hands, and was amazed.

  “Well, what of it?”

  “They’re all lumpy!” she cried, and, as her gaze rose to his cheek, her finger followed her eyes and pointed to strange appearances there. “Look at your face!”

  “Well, what of it?” he demanded, his tone not entirely free from braggadocio. “A girl can’t make expairaments the way I do, because if one of these good ole bumblebees or hornets of mine was to give ’em a little sting, once in a while, while they was catchin’ ’em and puttin’ ’em in a jar, all they’d know how to do’d be to holler and run home to their mamma. Nobody with any gumption minds a few little stings after you put mud on ’em.”

  “I guess it serves you right,” Florence said, “for persecutin’ these poor, poor little bugs.”

  Herbert became plaintive. “Look here, Florence; I do wish you’d go on back home where you belong.”

  But Florence did not reply; instead she picked up the magnifying-glass, and, gazing through it at a pickle jar of mixed beetles, caterpillars, angleworms, and potato bugs, permitted herself to shudder. “Vile things!” she said.

  “They are not, either!” Herbert retorted hotly. “They’re about the finest insecks that you or anybody else ever saw, and you ought to be ashamed — —”

  “I ought?” his cousin cried. “Well, I should think you’re the one ought to be ashamed, if anybody ought! Down here in the cellar playin’ with all these vile bugs that ought to be given their liberty, or thrown down the sewer, or somep’n!” Again, as she peered through the lens, she shuddered. “Vile — —”

  “Florence,” he said sternly, “you lay down that magnifying-glass.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t know how to handle it. A magnifying-glass has got to be handled in just the right way, and you couldn’t learn if you tried a thousand years. That’s a mighty fine magnifying-glass, and I don’t intend to have it ruined.”

  “Why, just lookin’ through it can’t spoil it, can it?” she inquired, surprised.

  “You lay it down,” said Herbert darkly. “Lookin’ through it the wrong way isn’t going to do it any good.”

  “Why, how could just lookin’ through it — —”

  “Lookin’ through it the wrong way isn’t goin’ to help it any, I tell you!” he insisted. “You’re old enough to know that, and I’m not goin’ to have my magnifying-glass spoiled and all my insecks wasted just because of a mere whin of yours!”

  “A what?”

  “A mere whin, I said!”

  “What’s a whin?”

  “Never you mind,” said Herbert ominously. “You’ll proba’ly find out some day when you aren’t expectin’ to!”

  Undeniably, Florence was somewhat impressed: she replaced the magnifying-glass upon the table and picked up the notebook.

  “You lay that down, too,” said Herbert instantly.

  “Oh, maybe it’s somep’n you’re ‘shamed to — —”

  “Go on and read it, then,” he said, suddenly changing his mind, for he was confident that she would find matter here that might cause her to appreciate at least a little of her own inferiority.

  “‘Nots’,” Florence began. “‘Nots’ — —”

  “Notes!” he corrected her fiercely.

  “‘Notes’,” she read. “‘Notes on our inseck friends. The spidder — —’”

  “Spider!”

  “‘The spider spends his time mostly in cobwebs which he digilently spins between posts and catches flies to eat them. They are different coloured and sizes and have legs in pairs. Spiders also spin their webs in corners or in weeds or on a fence and sometimes in the grass. They are more able to get about quicker than catapillars or fishing worms, but cannot fly such as pinching bugs, lightning bugs, and birds because having no wings, nor jump as far as the grass hoper — —’”

  “Grasshopper!” Herbert shouted.

  “I’m readin’ it the way it’s spelled,” Florence explained. “Anyway, it don’t make much sense.”

  Herbert was at least enough of an author to be furious. “Lay it down!” he said bitterly. “And go on back home to your dolls.”

  “Dolls certainly would be cleaner than vile bugs,” Florence retorted, tossing the book upon the table. “But in regards to that, I haven’t had any,” she went on, airily— “not for years and years and years and — —”

  He interrupted her, his voice again plaintive. “See here, Florence, how do you expect me to get my work done, with you everlastin’ly talkin’ and goin’ on around here like this? Can’t you see I’ve got somep’n pretty important on my hands?”

  Florence became thoughtful. “I never did see as many bugs before, all together this way,” she said. “What you goin’ to do with ’em, Herbert?”

  “I’m makin’ my expairaments.”

  But her thoughtfulness increased. “It seems to me,” she said slowly:— “Herbert, it seems to me there must be some awful inter’sting thing we could do with so many bugs all together like this.”

  “‘We’!” he cried. “My goodness, whose insecks do you think these insecks are?”

  “I just know there’s somep’n,” she went on, following her own line of thought, and indifferent to his outburst. “There’s somep’n we could do with ’em that we’d never forget, if we could only think of it.”

  In spite of himself, Herbert was interested. “Well, what?” he asked. “What could we do with ’em we’d never forget?”

  In her eyes there was a far-away light as of a seeress groping. “I don’t just know exackly, but I know there’s somep’n — if we could only think of it — if we could just — —” And her voice became inaudible, as in dreamy concentration she seated herself upon the discarded ice-cream freezer, and rested her elbows upon her knees and her chin upon the palms of her hands.

  In silence then, she thought and thought. Herbert also was silent, for he, too, was trying to think, not knowing that already he had proved himself to be wax in her hands, and that he was destined further to show himself thus malleable. Like many and many another of his sex, he never for an instant suspected that he spent the greater part of his time carrying out ideas implanted within him by a lady-friend. Florence was ever the imaginative one of those two, a maiden of unexpected fancies and inexplicable conceptions, a mind of quicksilver and mist. There was within her the seedling of a creative artist, and as she sat there, on the ice-cream freezer in Herbert’s cellar, with the slowly growing roseate glow of deep preoccupation upon her, she looked strangely sweet and good, and even almost pretty.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “DO YOU S’POSE,” she said, at last, in a musing voice: “Herbert, do you s’pose maybe there’s some poor family’s children somewheres that haven’t got any playthings or anything and we could take all these — —”

  But here Herbert proved unsympathetic. “I’m not goin’ to give my insecks to any poor people’s children,” he said emphatically. “I don’t care how poor they are!”

  “Well, I thought maybe just as a surprise — —”

  “I won’t do it. I had mighty hard work to catch this c’lection, and I’m not goin’ to give it away to anybody, I don’t care how surprised they’d be! Anyway, I’d never get any thanks for it; they wouldn’t know how to handle ’em, and they’d get all stung up: and what’d be the use, anyhow? I don’t see how that’s goin’ to be somep’n so interesting we’d never forget it.”

  “No,” she said. “I guess it wouldn’t. I just thought it would be kind of a bellnevolent thing to do.”

  This word disturbed Herbert, but he did not feel altogether secure in his own impression that “benovvalent” was the proper rendition of what she meant, and so refrained from criticism. Their musing was resumed.

  “There’s on
e thing I do wish,” Florence said suddenly, after a time. “I wish we could find some way to use the c’lection that would be useful for Noble Dill.”

  Now, at this, her cousin’s face showed simple amazement. “What on earth you talkin’ about?”

  “Noble Dill,” she said dreamily. “He’s the only one I like that comes to see Aunt Julia. Anyway, I like him the most.”

  “I bet Aunt Julia don’t!”

  “I don’t care: he’s the one I wish she’d get married to.”

  Herbert was astounded. “Noble Dill? Why, I heard mamma and Aunt Hattie and Uncle Joe talkin’ about him yesterday.”

  “What’d they say?”

  “Most of the time,” said Herbert, “they just laughed. They said Noble Dill was the very last person in this town Aunt Julia’d ever dream o’ marryin’. They said he wasn’t anything: they said he wasn’t handsome and he wasn’t distingrished-looking — —”

  “I think he is,” Florence interposed. “I think he’s very distingrished-looking.”

  “Well, they said he wasn’t, and they know more’n you do. Why, Noble Dill isn’t hardly any taller’n I am myself, and he hasn’t got any muscle partickyourly. Aunt Julia wouldn’t look at him!”

  “She does, too! My goodness, how could he sit on the porch, right in front of her, for two or three hours at a time, without her lookin’ at him?”

  “I don’t care,” Herbert insisted stubbornly. “They said Aunt Julia wouldn’t. They said she was the worst flirt had ever been in the whole family and Noble Dill had the worst case they ever saw, but she wouldn’t ever look at him, and if she did she’d be crazy.”

  “Well, anyway,” said Florence, “I think he’s the nicest of all that goes to see her, and I wish we could use this c’lection some way that would be nice for him.”

  Herbert renewed his protest. “How many times I got to tell you I had a hard enough time catchin’ this c’lection, day in and day out, from before daylight till after dark, and then fixin’ ’em all up like this and everything! I don’t prapose to waste ’em just to suit Noble Dill, and I’m not goin’ to give ’em away either. If anybody wanted to buy ’em and offered a good fair price, money down, why, I — —”

  “That’s it, Herbert!” his lady-cousin exclaimed with sudden excitement. “Let’s sell ’em!” She jumped up, her eyes bright. “I bet we could get maybe five dollars for ’em. We can pour the ones that are in the jars that haven’t got tops and the ones in the jelly glasses and pill-boxes — we can pour all those into the jars that have got tops, and put the tops on again, and that’d just about fill those jars — and then we could put ’em in a basket and take ’em out and sell ’em!”

  “Where could we sell ’em?” Herbert inquired, not convinced.

  “At the fish store!” she cried. “Everybody uses bugs and worms for bait when they go fishing, don’t they? I bet the fish man’ll buy all the worms we got, even if he wouldn’t buy anything else. I bet he’ll buy all the others, too! I bet he never saw as much good bait as this all at one time in his whole life! I bet he’ll give us five dollars — maybe more!”

  Herbert was dazzled; the thought of this market was a revelation — nothing could have been more plausible. Considered as bait, the c’lection at once seemed to acquire a practical and financial value which it lacked, purely as a c’lection. And with that the amateur and scientist disappeared, giving way to the person of affairs. “‘Give us five dollars’?” he said, in this capacity, and for deeper effect he used a rhetorical expression: “Who do you think is the owner of all this fish bait, may I ask you, pray?”

  “Yes, you may, pray!” was his cousin’s instant and supercilious retort. “Pray where would you ever of got any five dollars from any fish man, if it hadn’t been for me, pray? Pray, didn’t I first sajest our doing somep’n with the bugs we’d never forget, and if the fish man gives us five dollars for ’em won’t we remember it all our lives, pray? And, pray, what part did you think up of all this, pray? Not one single thing, and if you don’t divide even with me, I’ll run ahead and tell the fish man the whole c’lection has been in bottles that had old medicine and poison in ’em — and then where’ll you be, pray?”

  It is to be doubted that Florence possessed the cold-blooded capacities with which this impromptu in diplomacy seemed to invest her: probably she would never have gone so far. But the words sufficed; and Herbert was so perfectly intimidated that he was even unresentful. “Well, you can have your ole two dollars and a half, whether you got a right to it or not,” he said. “But you got to carry the basket.”

  “No,” said Florence. “This has got to be done right, Herbert. We’re partners now and everything’s got to be divided just exackly even. I’ll carry the basket half the way and you carry it the other half.”

  “Well — —” he grumbled, consenting.

  “That’s the only right way,” she said sunnily. “You carry it till we get to the fish man’s, and I’ll carry it all the way back.”

  But even Herbert could perceive the inequality here. “It’ll be empty then,” he protested.

  “Fair’s fair and wrong’s wrong,” she returned firmly. “I spoke first to carry it on the way home, and the one that speaks first gets it!”

  “Look here!”

  “Herbert, we got to get all these bugs fixed up and ready,” she urged. “We don’t want to waste the whole afternoon just talkin’ about it, do we? Besides, Herbert, on the way home you’ll have two dollars and a half in your pocket, or anyway as much as you have left, if you buy some soda and candy and things, and you’ll feel so fine then you won’t mind whether you’re carrying the basket or not.”

  The picture she now suggested to Herbert’s mind was of himself carrying the basket both to the fish man and from the fish man: and he found himself anxious to protest, yet helpless in a maze of perplexity. “But wait a minute,” he began. “You said — —”

  “Let’s don’t waste another minute,” she interrupted briskly. “I shouldn’t wonder it was after four o’clock by this time, and we both need money. Hurry, Herbert!”

  “But didn’t you say — —” He paused to rub his head. “You said I’d feel so good I wouldn’t mind if I — if — —”

  “No. I said, ‘Hurry’!”

  “Well — —” And though he felt that a subtle injustice lurked somewhere, he was unable to think the matter out clearly into its composing elements, and gave up trying. Nevertheless, as he obeyed her, and began to “hurry,” there remained with him an impression that by some foggy and underhand process he had been committed to acquiescence in an unfair division of labour.

  In this he was not mistaken. An hour later he and Florence were on their way home from the fish man’s place of business, and Herbert, having carried the basket thither, was now carrying it thence. Moreover, his burden was precisely as heavy on this homeward leg of the course as it had been on that terminating at the fish store, for, covered by a discreet newspaper, the preserve and pickle jars still remained within the basket, their crowding and indignant contents intact. The fish man had explained in terms derisive, but plain, the difference between a fish man and a fisherman. He had maintained his definitions of the two economic functions in spite of persistent arguments on the part of the bait-dealers, and in the face of reductions that finally removed ninety per cent. of their asking price. He wouldn’t give fifty cents, or ten cents, or one cent, he said: and he couldn’t furnish the address of anybody else that would. His fish came by express, he declared, again and again: and the only people he knew that did any fishing were mainly coloured, and dug their own bait; and though these might possibly be willing to accept the angle worms as a gift, they would probably incline to resent a generosity including so many spiders, not to speak of the dangerous winged members of the c’lection. On account of these latter, he jocosely professed himself to be anxious lest the tops of some of the jars might work loose — and altogether he was the most disheartening man they had ever met.

&nbs
p; Anticlimax was never the stimulant of amiability, and, after an altercation on the pavement just outside of the store, during which the derisive fish man continually called to them to go on and take that there basket out of the neighbourhood, the cousins moved morbidly away, and walked for a time in silence.

  They brooded. Herbert was even more embittered with Florence than he was with the fish man, and Florence found life full of unexpectedness; it had been so clear to her that the fish man would say: “Why, certainly. Here’s five dollars; two dollars and a half for each of you. Would you care to have the jars back?” The facts, so contrary, seemed to wear the aspect of deliberate malice, and she felt ill-used, especially as she had several physical grievances, due to her assistance in pouring part of the c’lection into the jars with tops. In spite of every precaution three or four of the liveliest items had made their escape, during this pouring, and had behaved resentfully. Florence bore one result on the back of her left hand, two others on the thumb and second finger of her right hand, and another, naturally the most conspicuous, on the point of her chin. These had all been painful, in spite of mud poultices, but, excited by the anticipation of a kindly smiling fish man, and occupied with plans for getting Herbert to spend part of his two dollars and a half for mutual refreshment, she had borne up cheerfully. Now, comprehending that she had suffered in vain, she suffered anew, and hated bugs, all fish men, and the world.

  It was Herbert who broke the silence and renewed the altercation. “How far you expeck me to go on luggin’ this ole basket?” he demanded bitterly. “All the way home?”

  “I don’t care how far,” she informed him. “You can throw it away if you want to. It’s certainly no propaty of mine, thank you!”

  “Look here, didn’t you promise you’d carry it home?”