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Andrew the Glad (Dramatic Reading)

<h2 id="id00361" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER V</h2> <h5 id="id00362">DAVID'S ROSE AND SOME THORNS</h5> "Now," said David, "if you'll just put away a few of those ancient pipes and puddle your papers a bit in your own cozy corner we can call these quarters ready to receive the ladies, God bless 'em! Does it look kinder bare to you? We might borrow a few drapes from the madam, or would you trust to the flowers? I'll send them up for you to fix around tasty. A blasted poet ought to know how to bunch spinach to look well." As he spoke David Kildare stood in the middle of the living-room in his bachelor quarters, which were in the Colonial, a tall pillared, wide windowed, white brick apartment-house that stood across the street from the home of Major Buchanan, and surveyed the long rooms upon which he and his man Eph had been expending their energies for more than an hour. Andrew Sevier sank down upon the arm of a chair and lighted a long and villainous pipe. "Trust to the flowers," he answered. "I think Phoebe doesn't care for the drapes of this life so much as some women do and as this is for her birthday let's have the flowers, sturdy ones with stiff stems and good head pieces." "That's right, Phoebe's nobody's clinging vine," answered David moodily. "She doesn't want any trellis either—wish something would wilt her! Look here, Andrew, on the square, what's the matter that I can't get Phoebe? You're a regular love pilot on paper, point me another course; this one is no good; I've run into a sand bank." The dark red forelock on David's brow was ruffled and his keen eyes were troubled, while his large sweet mouth was set in a straight firm line. He looked very strong, forceful and determined as he stopped in front of his friend and squared himself as if for a blow. Andrew Sevier looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds straight between the eyes, then his mouth widened into an affectionate smile as he laid his hand on the sturdy shoulder and said: "Not a thing on God's green earth the matter with you, Davie; it's the modernism of the situation that you seem unable to handle. May I use your flower simile? Once they grew in gardens and were drooping and sweet and overran trellises, to say nothing of clinging to oak trees, but we've developed the American Beauty, old man! It stands stiff and glossy and holds its head up on its own stem, the pride of the nation! We can get them, though they come high. Ah, but they are sweet! Phoebe is one of the most gorgeous to be found—it will be a price to pay, but you'll pay it, David, you'll pay." "God knows I'm paying it all day long every day and have been paying it for ten years. Never at peace about her for an instant. Protection at long distance is no joke. I can't sleep at night until she telephones me she is at home from the office on her duty nights and then I have to beg like a dog for the wire, just the word or two. She will overwork and undereat and—" "David," interrupted Sevier thoughtfully, "what do you really think is the matter? Let's get down to facts while we are about it." "Do you know, Andy, lately it has dawned upon me that Phoebe would like to dictate a life policy to me; hand me out a good, stiff life job. I believe she would marry me to-morrow if she could see me permanently installed on the front seat of a grocery wagon—permanently. And I'll come to it yet." "I believe you are right," laughed Andrew. "She really glories in her wage earning; it's a phase of them these days. She would actually hate living on your income." "Don't I know it? I suppose she would be content if she sewed on buttons and did the family wash to conserve the delivery wagon income. I wish she'd marry me for love and then I'd hire her at hundreds per week to dust around the house and cook pies for me, gladly, gladly." "We've developed thorns with our new rose, Dave," chuckled Andrew as he relighted his pipe. "Sweet hope of heaven, yes," groaned David. "My gore drips all the time from the gashes. I suppose it is a killing grief to her that I haven't a star corporation practise instead of fooling around the criminal court fighting old Taylor to get a square deal for the darky rag-tag most of my time. But, Andy, it makes me blaze house-high to see the way he hands the law out to 'em. They can cut and fight as long as it is in a whisky dive and no indictment returned; but let one of 'em sidestep an inch in any other ignorant pitiful way and it's the workhouse and the county road for theirs. "And the number of ways that the coons can get up to call on me to square the deal, is amazing. Just look at the week I've had! All Monday and Tuesday I spent on the Darky Country Club affair; the poor nigs just hungering for some place to go off and act white in for a few hours. Nobody would sell them an acre of ground near a car line and the dusky smart set was about to get its light put out. Jeff and Tempie told me about it. What did little Dave do but run around to persuade old man Elton to sell them that little point that juts out into the river two miles from town and just across from the rock quarry. No neighbors to kick and the interurban runs through the field. It really is a choice spot and I started their subscription with a hundred or two and got Williams to draw them some plans to fix up an old house that stands on the bank for a club-house. They are wide-mouthed with joy; but it sliced two days to do it, which I might have spent on the grocery wagon." "You always did have the making of a philanthropist in you, Dave," said Andrew thoughtfully. "You're a near-one at present speaking." "Philanthropist go hang—the rest of the week I have spent getting the old Confeds together and having everything in shape for the unveiling of the statue out at the Temple of Arts. I tell you we are going to have a turn-out. General Clopton is coming all the way to make the dedication speech. Caroline is about to bolt and I have to steady her at off times. I've promised to hold her hand through it all. Major is getting up the notes for General Clopton and he's touching on Peters Brown only in high places. It'll be mostly a show-down of old General Darrah and the three governors I'm thinking. "The Dames of the Confederacy and the Art League are going to have entries on the program without number. I have been interviewed and interviewed. Why, even the august Susie Carrie Snow sent for me and talked high art and city beautiful to me until I could taste it. "And all that sopped up the rest of the week when I ought to have been delivering pork steaks and string-beans at people's back doors to please Phoebe. Money grubbing doesn't appeal to me and I don't need it, but from now on I'm the busy grub—until after the 'no man put asunder' proclamation." "How you can manage to do one really public-spirited job after another, 'things that count,' and then elude all the credit for them is more than I can understand, Dave," said Andrew as he smiled through a blue ring of smoke. "Some day, if you don't look out, you'll be a leading citizen. In the meantime hustle about those flowers. Time flies." "I'll send them right up," said David as he donned his coat and hat and took up his crop. The hours David spent out of the saddle were those of his indoors occupations. "I'll be back soon. Just fix the flowers; Eph and the cook will do all the rest. And put the cards on the table any old way. I want to sit between Phoebe and Caroline Darrah Brown—well, whose party is it? You can sit next on either side." "Wait a minute, are—" "No, I must hurry and go brace up Milly for a pair of minutes. She wouldn't promise to come until I insisted on sending a trained nurse to sit with old Mammy Betty and the babies until she got back to 'em. Billy Bob is as wild as a kid about coming, he hasn't been anywhere for so long. I talked a week before I could persuade Milly, but she's got her glad rags and is as excited as Billy Bob. I tried to buy that boy twin for Phoebe's present but Milly said I had better get an old silver and amethyst bracelet. It's on my table in the white box. Bye!" and Kildare departed as far as the front door, but returned to stick his head in the door and say: "You'd better put Hob by Caroline Darrah on the other side; he's savage when he's crossed. And tack in Payt opposite her. I invited Polly the Fluff for you—she is a débutante and such a coo-child that she'll just suit a poet." He dodged just in time to escape the lighted pipe that was hurled upon him, and he couldn't have suspected that a hastily-formed plan to place himself opposite Caroline Darrah had gone up in the smoke that followed the death of life in Andrew's pipe. Then following the urgent instructions of David, Andrew began to right up the papers in his den which opened off the living-room. His desk was littered with manuscript, for the three days past had been golden ones and he had written under a strong impetus. The thought suddenly shot through him that he had been writing as he had once read, to eyes whose "depths on depths of luster" had misted and glowed and answered as he turned his pages in the twilight. Can ice in a man's breast burn like fire? Andrew crushed the sheets and thrust them into a drawer. Then came Eph and the cook to lay the cloth in the dining-room, and a man brought up the flowers. For a time he worked away with a strange excitement in his veins. When they had finished and he was alone in the apartment he walked slowly through the rooms. Where David happened to keep his household gods had been home to Andrew for many years. His books were in the dark Flemish oak cases and some of the prints on the walls were his. Most of the rugs he had picked up in his travels upon which his commissions led him, and some interesting skins had been added since his jungle experiences. It was all dark and rich and right-toned—the home of a gentleman. And David was like the rooms, right-toned and clean. Andrew found himself wondering if there would be men like David in the next generation, happy David with his cavalier nature and modern wit. The steady stream of wealth that was pouring into the South, down her mountain sides and welling up under her pasture lands, would it bring in its train death to the purity and sanity of her social institutions? Would swollen fortunes bring congestion of standards and grossness of morals? Suddenly he smiled for Billy Bob and Milly and a lot of the industrious young folks seemed to answer him. He had found eleven little new cousins on the scene of action when he had returned after five years—clear-eyed young Anglo-Americans, ready to take charge of the future. And he, what was his place in the building of his native city? His trained intelligence, his wide experience, his genius were being given to cutting a canal thousands of miles away while the streets of his own home were being cut up and undermined by half-trained bunglers. The beautiful forest suburbs were being planned and plotted by money-mad schemers who neither pre-visioned, nor cared to, the city of the future which was to be a great gateway of the nation to its Panama world-artery. He knew how to value the force of a man of his kind, with his reputation and influence, and he would gage just what he would be able to do for the city with the municipal backing he could command if he set his shoulder to the wheel. A talk he had had with the major a day or two ago came back to him. The old fellow's eyes had glowed as he told him the plan they had been obliged to abandon in the early seventies for a boulevard from the capitol to the river because of the lack of city construction funds. Andrew's own father had formulated the plan and gone before the city fathers with it, and for a time there had been hope of its accomplishment. And the major had declared emphatically that a time was coming when the city would want and ask for it again. That other Andrew Sevier of the major's youth had conceived the scheme; the major had repeated the fact slowly. Did he mean it as a call to him? Andrew's eyes glowed. He could see it all, with its difficulties and its possibilities. He rested his clenched hand on the table and the artist in him had the run of his pulses. He could see it all and he knew in all humbleness that he could construct the town as no other man of his generation would be able to do; the beautiful hill-rimmed city! And just as potent he felt the call of the half-awakened spirit of art and letters that had lain among them poverty-bound for forty reconstructive years. For what had he been so richly dowered? To sing his songs from the camp of a wanderer and write his plays with a foreign flavor, when he might voice his own people in the world of letters, his own with their background of traditions and tragedy and their foreground of rough-hewn possibilities? Was not the meed of his fame, small or large, theirs? Suddenly the tension snapped and sadness chilled through his veins. Here there would always be that memory which brought its influences of bitterness and depression to kill the creative in him. The old mad desire to be gone and away from it beat up into his blood, then stilled on the instant. What was it that caught his breath in his breast at the thought of exile? Could he go now, could— Just at this moment he was interrupted by Mrs. Matilda who came hurrying into the room with ribbons and veil aflutter. She evidently had only the moment to stay and she took in his decorative schemes with the utmost delight. "Andrew," she said with enthusiasm in every tone, "it is all lovely, lovely. You boys are wonders! These bachelor establishments are threatening to make women wonder what they were born for. And what do you think? The major is coming! The first place he has gone this winter—and he wants to sit between Phoebe and Caroline Darrah. I just ran over to tell you. Good-by! We must both dress." And Andrew smiled as he rearranged the place-cards. And it happened that in more ways than one David Kildare found himself the perturbed host. He rushed home and dressed with lightning-like rapidity and whirled away in the limousine for Milly and Billy Bob. He went for them early, for he had bargained to come for Phoebe as late as possible so as to give her time to reckon with her six-thirty freckled-faced devil at the office. But at the Overtons he found confusion confounded. "I'm so sorry, David," Milly almost sobbed, "but Mammy Betty's daughter has run away and got married and she has gone to see about it, and the trained nurse can't come. There has been an awful wreck up the road and all the doctors in town have gone and taken all the nurses with them. She didn't consider the babies serious, so she just had some one telephone at the last minute that she had gone. I can't go; but please make Billy go with you! There is no use—" and she turned to Billy Bob who stood by in pathetically gorgeous array, but firm in his intention not to desert the home craft. "We just can't make it, Dave, old man," he said manfully, as he caught his tearful wife's outstretched hand in his. "Go on before we both cry!" "Go on, nothing—with Milly looking like a lovely pink apple-blossom! You've got to come. I wouldn't dare face Phoebe without you. It's the whole thing to her to have you there. It's been so long since you've gladded with the crowd once and it's her birthday and—" David's voice trailed off into a perfect wail. "But what can we do?" faltered Milly, dissolved at the mention of the new frock. "We certainly can't leave them and we can't take them and—" "Glory, that's the idea, let's take the whole bunch!" exclaimed David with radiant countenance. "I ought to have invited them in the first place. Come on and let's begin to bundle!" and he made a dive in the direction of the door of the nursery. "Oh, no, indeed we can't!" gasped Milly while Billy Bob stood stricken, unable to utter a word. "I'll show you whether we will or not," answered David. "Catch me losing a chance like this to ring one on Phoebe for several reasons. Hurry up!" and as he spoke he had lifted little Mistake from his cot and was dextrously winding him in his blanket. The youngster opened his big dewy eyes and chuckled at the sight of his side partner, David Kildare. "That's all right, he's all for his Uncle Davie. Here, you take him Billy Bob and I'll help Milly roll up the twins. She can bring down Crimie while I bring them," and as he spoke he began a rapid swathing of the two limp little bodies from the white crib. "But, David," gasped Milly, "it is impossible! They are not dressed—they will take cold—" "The limousine is as hot as smoke—can't hurt 'em—plenty of blankets," with which he thrust the nodding young Crimie into her arms and lifted carefully the large bundle which contained both twins in his own. "Go on!" he commanded the paralyzed pair. "I will pull the door to with my free foot." And he actually forced the helpless parents of the four to embark with him on this most unusual of adventures. When they were all seated in the car Milly looked at Billy Bob and burst into a gale of hysterical laughter. But Billy Bob's spunk was up by this time and he was all on the side of the resourceful David. "Why not?" he asked brazenly. "Nine-tenths of the people in the world take the kids with them on all the frolics they get, why not we? They know it's all right, they haven't objected." And indeed there had not been a single chirp from any of the swathings. Big Brother was the only one awake and he was, as usual, entranced at the very sight of his Uncle David, who held the twins with practised skill on his knees. "Now," he said jubilantly, "don't anybody warn Phoebe and I'm going to put them on the big divan with her presents. You'll see something crash, I'm thinking." And it was worth it all when Phoebe did see her unexpected guests. Big Brother, divested of his blanket and clad in a pink Teddy Bear garment, sat bolt upright in the center of the divan, and Crimie lay snuggled against him with his thumb in his mouth and entranced eyes on the brilliant chandelier. The twins were nestled contentedly down in the corner together like two little kittens in a basket. Before them knelt Polly with one finger clasped by the one whose golden fuzz declared her to be Little Sister, while Caroline Darrah leaned over Big Brother who was fingering a string of sapphires that fell from her neck, with obvious delight. The rest of the party stood in an admiring and uproarious circle. "Why," exclaimed Phoebe in blank astonishment, "why David Kildare!" "You said you wanted your most intimate friends to-night, Phoebe, and here they are," he answered with pride in every tone of his voice. "Oh, dearie," said Milly as she clasped Phoebe's hand, "we couldn't come without them—everything happened wrong. I know it's awful and I ought to take them right back now and—" "David Kildare," said Phoebe as she divined in an instant the whole situation, "I love—I love you for doing it," and she sank on her knees by Caroline. Mistake let go the chain and bobbed forward to bestow a moist kiss on this, his friend of long standing; and as he chuckled and snuggled his little nose under her white chin Phoebe's echo was a sigh of such absolute rapture that the whole circle shouted with glee. And late as it was dinner was announced three times before the host or the guests could be persuaded to think of food. And not until David's bed was made ready for the little guests did they begin to make their way into the dining-room. It was Andrew who finally insisted on carrying the babes away and tucking them in—only Caroline went with him with Little Sister in her arms and laid her gently on the pillow. She refused to lift her eyes to him for so much as a half-second until he drew her chair from the table for her; but then her shy glance was deep with innocent tenderness. "Now," said the major as they settled laughingly into their places, "everybody's glass high to the silent guests!" And they drank his toast with enthusiasm. "And," added David Kildare as he set down his glass, "they needn't be 'silent guests' unless it suits them. When they want to rough-house they know Uncle David's is the place to come to do it in." "But let's hope they won't want to, David," laughed Milly, radiant with excitement. "I tell you what let's do," said the enlivened Hobson from the coveted seat next Caroline Darrah Brown, "let's all give them hard sleeping suggestions, all at the same time…. Maybe they won't wake up for a week." "Andrew," said Mrs. Buchanan as she looked with delight in his direction, "these are delicious things you and David have to eat. I am so glad you are well again and can enjoy them." "Better go slow, Andy," called David from down the table. "Sure you don't need a raw egg? Phoebe has a couple up her sleeve here she can lend you. The major has persuaded her to take a bit of duck and some asparagus and a brandied peach and—" "David Kildare," said Phoebe in a coolly dangerous voice, "I will get even with you for that if it takes me a week. This is the first thing I have had to eat since meal before last and I lost two and a half pounds last week. So I'll see that you—" "Please, please, Phoebe, I'll be good! Just let me off this time. I'm giddy from looking at you!" And before a delighted audience David Kildare abased himself. "Anyway, I've got news to relate," he hastened to offer by way of propitiation. "What do you think has happened to Andrew? I didn't promise not to tell," he drawled, prolonging the agony to its limit. "Hurry, David, do!" exclaimed Phoebe with suspended fork. Caroline leaned forward eagerly, while Andrew began a laughing protest. "It's only that Hetherton is going to put the great Mainwright on in Andy's new play in the fall—letter came to-day. Now, doesn't he shove his pen to some form—some?" he demanded as he beamed upon his friend with the greatest pride. "Oh," said Caroline Darrah, "Mainwright is great enough to do it—almost!" A pulse of joy shot through Andrew as her excited eyes gleamed into his. Of them all she and the major only had read his play and could congratulate him really. He had turned to her instantly when David had made his announcement, and she had answered him as instantly with her delight. "And Cousin Andy," asked Polly who sat next to him, "will I have to cry at the third act? Please don't make me, it's so unbecoming. Why can't people do all the wonderful things they do in plays without being so mussy?" "Child," jeered David Kildare as they all laughed, "don't you know a heart-throb when you're up against it—er—beg pardon—I mean to say that plays are sold at so much a sob. Seems to me you get wise very slowly." Polly pouted and young Boston who sat next her went red up to his hair. "Better let me look over the contracts for you, Andrew," said Tom Cantrell with friendly interest in his shrewd eyes. If the material was all Tom had to offer his friends he did that with generosity and sincerity. So until the roses fell into softly wilting heaps and the champagne broke in the glasses they sat and talked and laughed. Pitched battles raged up and down the table and there were perfect whirlpools of argument and protestation. Phoebe was her most brilliant self and her laughter rang out rich and joyous at the slightest provocation. The major delighted in a give and take encounter with her and their wit drew sparks from every direction. "No, Major," she said as the girls rose with Mrs. Buchanan after the last toast had been drunk, "toast my wit, toast my courage, toast my loyalty, but my beauty—ah, aren't women learning not to use it as an asset?" As she spoke she stretched out one white hand and bare rounded arm to him in entreaty. Phoebe was more lovely than she knew as she flung her challenge into the camp of her friends and they all felt the call in her dauntless dawn-gray eyes. Her unconsciousness amounted to a positive audacity. "Phoebe," answered the major as he rose and stood beside her chair, "all those things stir at times our cosmic consciousness, but beauty is the bouquet to the woman-wine—and you can't help it!" "How do you old fellows down at the bivouac really feel about this conduit business, Major," said Tom Cantrell as he moved his chair close around by the major's after the last swish and rustle had left the men alone in the dining-room for a few moments. "Just a question starts father fire-eating, so I thought I would ask you to put me next. It's up in the city council." "Tom," answered the major as he blew a ring of smoke between himself and the shrewd eyes, "what on earth have a lot of broken-down old Confederate soldiers got to do with the management of the affairs of the city? You young men are to attend to that—give us a seat in the sun and our pipes—of peace." "Oh, hang, Major! Look at the way you old fellows swung that gas contract in the council. You 'sit in the sun' all right but they all know that the bivouac pulls the plurality vote in this city when it chooses—and they jump when you speak. What are you going to do about this conduit?" "Is it pressing? Not much being said about it." "That's it—they want to make it a sneak in. Mayor Potts is pushing hard and we know he's just the judge's catspaw. Judge Taylor owns the city council since that last election and I believe he has bought the board of public works outright. The conduit is just a whisky ring scheme to hand out jobs before the judge's election. They have got to keep the criminal court fixed, Major, for this town is running wide open day and night—with prohibition voted six months ago. They've got to keep Taylor on the bench. What do you say?" "Well," answered the major, beetling his brows over his keen eyes, "I suppose there is no doubt that Taylor is machine-made. He's the real blind tiger, and Potts is his striped kitten. I understand he 'lost' four-fifths of the 'open' indictments that the grand jury 'found' on their last sitting. The whisky men are going to sell as long as the criminal court protects them, of course. Let's let them cut that conduit deeper into the public mind before they begin on the streets." "I'm looking for a nasty show-down for this town before long, Major, if there are men enough in it to call the machine." "Tom," answered the major as he blew a last ring from his cigar, "a town is in a rotten fix when the criminal court is a mockery. Let's go interrupt the women's dimity talk." And it was quite an hour later that Milly decided in an alarmed hurry that she and the babies must take their immediate departure. David maneuvered manfully to send them home in his car and to have Phoebe wait and let him take her home later—alone. But Phoebe insisted upon going with Milly and Billy Bob and the youngsters, and the reflection that the distance from the unfashionable quarter inhabited by the little family, back to Phoebe's down-town apartment was very short, depressed him to the point of defiance—almost. However, he packed them all in and then as skilfully unpacked them at the door of their little home. He carried up the twins and even remained a moment to help in their unswathing before he descended to the waiting car and Phoebe. As he gave the word and swung in beside her, David Kildare heaved a deep and rapturous sigh. It was so much to the good to have her to himself for the short whirl through the desolated winter streets. It was a situation to be made the most of for it came very seldom. He turned to speak to her in the half light and found her curled up in the corner with her soft cheek resting against the cushions. Her attitude was one of utter weariness, but she smiled without opening her eyes as she nestled closer against the rough leather. "Tired, peach-bud?" he asked softly. One of the gifts of the high gods to David Kildare was a voice with a timbre suitable to the utmost tenderness, when the occasion required. "Yes," answered Phoebe drowsily, "but so happy! It was all lovely, David." Her pink-palmed hand lay relaxed on her knee. David lifted it cautiously in both his strong warm ones and bent over it, his heart ahammer with trepidation. For as a general thing neither the environment nor his mood had much influence in the softening way on Phoebe's cool aloofness, but this once some sympathetic chord must have vibrated in her heart for she clasped her fingers around his and received the caress on their pink tips with opening eyes that smiled with a hint of tenderness. "David," she said with a low laugh, "I'm too tired to be stern with you tonight, but I'll hold you responsible to-morrow—for everything. Here we are; do see if that red-headed devil is sitting on the door-step and tell him that there is—no—more copy—if I am a half-column short. And, David," she drew their clasped hands nearer and laid her free one over both his as the car drew up to the curb, "you—are—a—dear! Here's my key in my muff. To-morrow at five? I don't know—you will have to phone me. Good night, and thank you—dear. Yes—good night again!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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