Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “Oh, no’m — I mean, no, indeed. I shouldn’t think of it. But don’t you think that was funny, his bringing in Christ, that way?”

  “Well, he’s going to be a minister, you know.”

  “Is he really?” Clementina was a while silent. At last she said, “Don’t you think Mr. Gregory has a good many freckles?”

  “Well, them red-complected kind is liable to freckle,” said Mrs. Atwell, judicially.

  After rather a long pause for both of them, Clementina asked, “Do you think it would be nice for me to ask Mr. Gregory about things, when I wasn’t suttain?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh-wo’ds, and pronunciation; and books to read.”

  “Why, I presume he’d love to have you. He’s always correctin’ the guls; I see him take up a book one day, that one of ’em was readin’, and when she as’t him about it, he said it was rubbage. I guess you couldn’t have a betta guide.”

  “Well, that was what I was thinking. I guess I sha’n’t do it, though. I sh’d neva have the courage.” Clementina laughed and then fell rather seriously silent again.

  VII.

  One day the shoeman stopped his wagon at the door of the helps’ house, and called up at its windows, “Well, guls, any of you want to git a numba foua foot into a numba two shoe, to-day? Now’s youa chance, but you got to be quick abort it. The’e ha’r’t but just so many numba two shoes made, and the wohld’s full o’ numba foua feet.”

  The windows filled with laughing faces at the first sound of the shoeman’s ironical voice; and at sight of his neat wagon, with its drawers at the rear and sides, and its buggy-hood over the seat where the shoeman lounged lazily holding the reins, the girls flocked down the stairs, and out upon the piazza where the shoe man had handily ranged his vehicle.

  They began to ask him if he had not this thing and that, but he said with firmness, “Nothin’ but shoes, guls. I did carry a gen’l line, one while, of what you may call ankle-wea’, such as spats, and stockin’s, and gaitas, but I nova did like to speak of such things befoa ladies, and now I stick ex-elusively to shoes. You know that well enough, guls; what’s the use?”

  He kept a sober face amidst the giggling that his words aroused, — and let his voice sink into a final note of injury.

  “Well, if you don’t want any shoes, to-day, I guess I must be goin’.” He made a feint of jerking his horse’s reins, but forebore at the entreaties that went up from the group of girls.

  “Yes, we do!” “Let’s see them!” “Oh, don’t go!” they chorused in an equally histrionic alarm, and the shoeman got down from his perch to show his wares.

  “Now, the’a, ladies,” he said, pulling out one of the drawers, and dangling a pair of shoes from it by the string that joined their heels, “the’e’s a shoe that looks as good as any Sat’d’y-night shoe you eva see. Looks as han’some as if it had a pasteboa’d sole and was split stock all through, like the kind you buy for a dollar at the store, and kick out in the fust walk you take with your fella— ‘r some other gul’s fella, I don’t ca’e which. And yet that’s an honest shoe, made of the best of material all the way through, and in the best manna. Just look at that shoe, ladies; ex-amine it; sha’n’t cost you a cent, and I’ll pay for youa lost time myself, if any complaint is made.” He began to toss pairs of the shoes into the crowd of girls, who caught them from each other before they fell, with hysterical laughter, and ran away with them in-doors to try them on. “This is a shoe that I’m intaducin’,” the shoeman went on, “and every pair is warranted — warranted numba two; don’t make any otha size, because we want to cata to a strictly numba two custom. If any lady doos feel ’em a little mite too snug, I’m sorry for her, but I can’t do anything to help her in this shoe.”

  “Too snug!” came a gay voice from in-doors. “Why my foot feels puffectly lost in this one.”

  “All right,” the shoeman shouted back. “Call it a numba one shoe and then see if you can’t find that lost foot in it, some’eres. Or try a little flour, and see if it won’t feel more at home. I’ve hea’d of a shoe that give that sensation of looseness by not goin’ on at all.”

  The girls exulted joyfully together at the defeat of their companion, but the shoeman kept a grave face, while he searched out other sorts of shoes and slippers, and offered them, or responded to some definite demand with something as near like as he could hope to make serve. The tumult of talk and laughter grew till the chef put his head out of the kitchen door, and then came sauntering across the grass to the helps’ piazza. At the same time the clerk suffered himself to be lured from his post by the excitement. He came and stood beside the chef, who listened to the shoeman’s flow of banter with a longing to take his chances with him.

  “That’s a nice hawss,” he said. “What’ll you take for him?”

  “Why, hello!” said the shoeman, with an eye that dwelt upon the chef’s official white cap and apron, “You talk English, don’t you? Fust off, I didn’t know but it was one of them foreign dukes come ova he’a to marry some oua poor millionai’es daughtas.” The girls cried out for joy, and the chef bore their mirth stoically, but not without a personal relish of the shoeman’s up-and-comingness. “Want a hawss?” asked the shoeman with an air of business. “What’ll you give?”

  “I’ll give you thutty-seven dollas and a half,” said the chef.

  “Sorry I can’t take it. That hawss is sellin’ at present for just one hundred and fifty dollas.”

  “Well,” said the chef, “I’ll raise you a dolla and a quahta. Say thutty-eight and seventy-five.”

  “W-ell now, you’re gittin’ up among the figgas where you’re liable to own a hawss. You just keep right on a raisin’ me, while I sell these ladies some shoes, and maybe you’ll hit it yit, ‘fo’e night.”

  The girls were trying on shoes on every side now, and they had dispensed with the formality of going in-doors for the purpose. More than one put out her foot to the clerk for his opinion of the fit, and the shoeman was mingling with the crowd, testing with his hand, advising from his professional knowledge, suggesting, urging, and in some cases artfully agreeing with the reluctance shown.

  “This man,” said the chef, indicating Fane, “says you can tell moa lies to the square inch than any man out o’ Boston.”

  “Doos he?” asked the shoeman, turning with a pair of high-heeled bronze slippers in his hand from the wagon. “Well, now, if I stood as nea’ to him as you do, I believe I sh’d hit him.”

  “Why, man, I can’t dispute him!” said the chef, and as if he had now at last scored a point, he threw back his head and laughed. When he brought down his head again, it was to perceive the approach of Clementina. “Hello,” he said for her to hear, “he’e comes the Boss. Well, I guess I must be goin’,” he added, in mock anxiety. “I’m a goin’, Boss, I’m a goin’.”

  Clementina ignored him. “Mr. Atwell wants to see you a moment, Mr. Fane,” she said to the clerk.

  “All right, Miss Claxon,” Fane answered, with the sorrowful respect which he always showed Clementina, now, “I’ll be right there.” But he waited a moment, either in expression of his personal independence, or from curiosity to know what the shoeman was going to say of the bronze slippers.

  Clementina felt the fascination, too; she thought the slippers were beautiful, and her foot thrilled with a mysterious prescience of its fitness for them.

  “Now, the’e, ladies, or as I may say guls, if you’ll excuse it in one that’s moa like a fatha to you than anything else, in his feelings” — the girls tittered, and some one shouted derisively— “It’s true!”— “now there is a shoe, or call it a slippa, that I’ve rutha hesitated about showin’ to you, because I know that you’re all rutha serious-minded, I don’t ca’e how young ye be, or how good-lookin’ ye be; and I don’t presume the’e’s one among you that’s eve’ head o’ dancin’.” In the mirthful hooting and mocking that followed, the shoeman hedged gravely from the extreme position he had taken. “What? Wel
l, maybe you have among some the summa folks, but we all know what summa folks ah’, and I don’t expect you to patte’n by them. But what I will say is that if any young lady within the sound of my voice,” — he looked round for the applause which did not fail him in his parody of the pulpit style— “should get an invitation to a dance next winta, and should feel it a wo’k of a charity to the young man to go, she’ll be sorry — on his account, rememba — that she ha’n’t got this pair o’ slippas.

  “The’a! They’re a numba two, and they’ll fit any lady here, I don’t ca’e how small a foot she’s got. Don’t all speak at once, sistas! Ample time allowed for meals. That’s a custom-made shoe, and if it hadn’t b’en too small for the lady they was oddid foh, you couldn’t-’a’ got ’em for less than seven dollas; but now I’m throwin’ on ’em away for three.”

  A groan of dismay went up from the whole circle, and some who had pressed forward for a sight of the slippers, shrank back again.

  “Did I hea’ just now,” asked the shoeman, with a soft insinuation in his voice, and in the glance he suddenly turned upon Clementina, “a party addressed as Boss?” Clementina flushed, but she did not cower; the chef walked away with a laugh, and the shoeman pursued him with his voice. “Not that I am goin’ to folla the wicked example of a man who tries to make spot of young ladies; but if the young lady addressed as Boss—”

  “Miss Claxon,” said the clerk with ingratiating reverence.

  “Miss Claxon — I Stan’ corrected,” pursued the shoeman. “If Miss Claxon will do me the fava just to try on this slippa, I sh’d be able to tell at the next place I stopped just how it looked on a lady’s foot. I see you a’n’t any of you disposed to buy ’em this aftanoon, ‘and I a’n’t complainin’; you done pootty well by me, already, and I don’t want to uhge you; but I do want to carry away the picture, in my mind’s eye — what you may call a mental photograph — of this slipper on the kind of a foot it was made for, so’t I can praise it truthfully to my next customer. What do you say, ma’am?” he addressed himself with profound respect to Clementina.

  “Oh, do let him, Clem!” said one of the girls, and another pleaded, “Just so he needn’t tell a story to his next customa,” and that made the rest laugh.

  Clementina’s heart was throbbing, and joyous lights were dancing in her eyes. “I don’t care if I do,” she said, and she stooped to unlace her shoe, but one of the big girls threw herself on her knees at her feet to prevent her. Clementina remembered too late that there was a hole in her stocking and that her little toe came through it, but she now folded the toe artfully down, and the big girl discovered the hole in time to abet her attempt at concealment. She caught the slipper from the shoeman and harried it on; she tied the ribbons across the instep, and then put on the other. “Now put out youa foot, Clem! Fast dancin’ position!” She leaned back upon her own heels, and Clementina daintily lifted the edge of her skirt a little, and peered over at her feet. The slippers might or might not have been of an imperfect taste, in their imitation of the prevalent fashion, but on Clementina’s feet they had distinction.

  “Them feet was made for them slippas,” said the shoeman devoutly.

  The clerk was silent; he put his hand helplessly to his mouth, and then dropped it at his side again.

  Gregory came round the corner of the building from the dining-room, and the big girl who was crouching before Clementina, and who boasted that she was not afraid of the student, called saucily to him, “Come here, a minute, Mr. Gregory,” and as he approached, she tilted aside, to let him see Clementina’s slippers.

  Clementina beamed up at him with all her happiness in her eyes, but after a faltering instant, his face reddened through its freckles, and he gave her a rebuking frown and passed on.

  “Well, I decla’e!” said the big girl. Fane turned uneasily, and said with a sigh, he guessed he must be going, now.

  A blight fell upon the gay spirits of the group, and the shoeman asked with an ironical glance after Gregory’s retreating figure, “Owna of this propaty?”

  “No, just the ea’th,” said the big girl, angrily.

  The voice of Clementina made itself heard with a cheerfulness which had apparently suffered no chill, but was really a rising rebellion. “How much ah’ the slippas?”

  “Three dollas,” said the shoeman in a surprise which he could not conceal at Clementina’s courage.

  She laughed, and stooped to untie the slippers. “That’s too much for me.”

  “Let me untie ‘em, Clem,” said the big girl. “It’s a shame for you eva to take ’em off.”

  “That’s right, lady,” said the shoeman. “And you don’t eva need to,” he added, to Clementina, “unless you object to sleepin’ in ‘em. You pay me what you want to now, and the rest when I come around the latta paht of August.”

  “Oh keep ‘em, Clem!” the big girl urged, passionately, and the rest joined her with their entreaties.

  “I guess I betta not,” said Clementina, and she completed the work of taking off the slippers in which the big girl could lend her no further aid, such was her affliction of spirit.

  “All right, lady,” said the shoeman. “Them’s youa slippas, and I’ll just keep ’em for you till the latta paht of August.”

  He drove away, and in the woods which he had to pass through on the road to another hotel he overtook the figure of a man pacing rapidly. He easily recognized Gregory, but he bore him no malice. “Like a lift?” he asked, slowing up beside him.

  “No, thank you,” said Gregory. “I’m out for the walk.” He looked round furtively, and then put his hand on the side of the wagon, mechanically, as if to detain it, while he walked on.

  “Did you sell the slippers to the young lady?”

  “Well, not as you may say sell, exactly,” returned the shoeman, cautiously.

  “Have you — got them yet?” asked the student.

  “Guess so,” said the man. “Like to see ‘em?”

  He pulled up his horse.

  Gregory faltered a moment. Then he said, “I’d like to buy them. Quick!”

  He looked guiltily about, while the shoeman alertly obeyed, with some delay for a box to put them in. “How much are they?”

  “Well, that’s a custom made slipper, and the price to the lady that oddid’em was seven dollas. But I’ll let you have ’em for three — if you want ’em for a present.” — The shoeman was far too discreet to permit himself anything so overt as a smile; he merely let a light of intelligence come into his face.

  Gregory paid the money. “Please consider this as confidential,” he said, and he made swiftly away. Before the shoeman could lock the drawer that had held the slippers, and clamber to his perch under the buggy-hood, Gregory was running back to him again.

  “Stop!” he called, and as he came up panting in an excitement which the shoeman might well have mistaken for indignation attending the discovery of some blemish in his purchase. “Do you regard this as in any manner a deception?” he palpitated.

  “Why,” the shoeman began cautiously, “it wa’n’t what you may call a promise, exactly. More of a joke than anything else, I looked on it. I just said I’d keep ’em for her; but—”

  “You don’t understand. If I seemed to disapprove — if I led any one to suppose, by my manner, or by — anything — that I thought it unwise or unbecoming to buy the shoes, and then bought them myself, do you think it is in the nature of an acted falsehood?”

  “Lo’d no!” said the shoeman, and he caught up the slack of his reins to drive on, as if he thought this amusing maniac might also be dangerous.

  Gregory stopped him with another question. “And shall — will you — think it necessary to speak of — of this transaction? I leave you free!”

  “Well,” said the shoeman. “I don’t know what you’re after, exactly, but if you think I’m so shot on for subjects that I’ve got to tell the folks at the next stop that I sold a fellar a pair of slippas for his gul — Go ‘long!” he calle
d to his horse, and left Gregory standing in the middle of the road.

  VIII.

  The people who came to the Middlemount in July were ordinarily the nicest, but that year the August folks were nicer than usual and there were some students among them, and several graduates just going into business, who chose to take their outing there instead of going to the sea-side or the North Woods. This was a chance that might not happen in years again, and it made the house very gay for the young ladies; they ceased to pay court to the clerk, and asked him for letters only at mail-time. Five or six couples were often on the floor together, at the hops, and the young people sat so thick upon the stairs that one could scarcely get up or down.

  So many young men made it gay not only for the young ladies, but also for a certain young married lady, when she managed to shirk her rather filial duties to her husband, who was much about the verandas, purblindly feeling his way with a stick, as he walked up and down, or sitting opaque behind the glasses that preserved what was left of his sight, while his wife read to him. She was soon acquainted with a good many more people than he knew, and was in constant request for such occasions as needed a chaperon not averse to mountain climbing, or drives to other hotels for dancing and supper and return by moonlight, or the more boisterous sorts of charades; no sheet and pillow case party was complete without her; for welsh-rarebits her presence was essential. The event of the conflict between these social claims and her duties to her husband was her appeal to Mrs. Atwell on a point which the landlady referred to Clementina.

  “She wants somebody to read to her husband, and I don’t believe but what you could do it, Clem. You’re a good reader, as good as I want to hear, and while you may say that you don’t put in a great deal of elocution, I guess you can read full well enough. All he wants is just something to keep him occupied, and all she wants is a chance to occupy herself with otha folks. Well, she is moa their own age. I d’know as the’s any hahm in her. And my foot’s so much betta, now, that I don’t need you the whole while, any moa.”