The Squirrel Inn

"Very good," said Lodloe, as they approached Miss Rose's place of business; "I shall not interfere with your native sports, but I do not care to join them. I shall continue my walk, and stop for you on my way back."

When Lanigan Beam entered Miss Rose's shop she was sitting, as was her custom, by the back window, sewing. A neighbor had dropped in to chat with her a half-hour before, but had gone away very soon. The people of Lethbury had learned to understand when Calthea Rose did not wish to chat.

Miss Calthea was not happy; she was disappointed. Things had not gone as she hoped they would go, and as she had believed they would go when she accepted Mrs. Petter's invitation to tea. That meal had been a very pleasant one; even the presence of Ida Mayberry, who came to table with the family when the baby happened to be asleep, did not disturb her. On the contrary, it gratified her, for Lanigan Beam sat by that young person and was very attentive to her. She carefully watched Mr. Tippengray, and perceived that this attention, and the interest of the child's nurse in Lanigan's remarks, did not appear to give him the least uneasiness. Thereupon she began gradually, and she hoped imperceptibly, to resume her former method of intercourse with the Greek scholar, and to do so without any show of restoring him to favor. She did this so deftly that Mrs. Cristie was greatly interested in the performance, and an outside observer could have had no reason to suppose that there had been any break in the friendly intercourse between Miss Rose and Mr. Tippengray.

But this unsatisfactory state of things soon came to an end. When the daylight began to wane, and Miss Calthea's phaeton had been brought to the door, she went to it with her plans fully formed. As Mr. Tippengray assisted her into the vehicle, she intended to accept his proposition to drive her to Lethbury. She had slightly deferred her departure in order that the growing duskness might give greater reason for the proposition. There would be a moon about nine o'clock, and his walk back would be pleasant.

But when she reached the phaeton Mr. Tippengray was not there. Ida Mayberry, eager to submit to his critical eye two lines of Browning which she had put into a sort of Greek resembling the partly cremated corpse of a dead language, and who for the past ten minutes had been nervously waiting for Master Douglas to close his eyes in sleep that she might rush down to Mr. Tippengray while he was yet strolling on the lawn by himself, had rushed down to him, and had made him forget everything else in the world in his instinctive effort to conceal from his pupil the shock given him by the sight of her lines. He had been waiting for Miss Calthea to come out, had been intending to hand her to her vehicle, and had thought of proposing to accompany her to the village; but he had not heard the phaeton roll to the door, the leave-taking on the porch did not reach his ear, and his mind took no note whatever of the fact that Miss Rose was on the point of departure.

As that lady, stepping out upon the piazza, swept her eyes over the scene and beheld the couple on the lawn, she gave a jerk to the glove she was drawing on her hand that tore in it a slit three inches long. She then turned her eyes upon her phaeton, declined the offer of Mr. Petter to see her home, and, after a leave-taking which was a little more effusive than was usual with her, drove herself to Lethbury. If the sorrel horse had behaved badly in the early part of that afternoon, he was punished for it in the early part of that evening, for he completely broke all previous records of time made between the Squirrel Inn and Lethbury.

Thus the hopes of Miss Calthea had been doubly darkened; the pariah with the brimstone blossoms had not only treacherously deserted Lanigan, but had made Mr. Tippengray treacherously desert her. She had been furiously angry; now she was low-spirited and cross. But one thing in the world could have then cheered her spirits, and that would have been the sight of her bitterest enemy and Lanigan Beam driving or walking together past her shop door; but when Lanigan alone entered that shop door she was not cheered at all.

Mr. Beam's greeting was very free and unceremonious, and without being asked to do so he took a seat near the proprietress of the establishment.

"Well, well," he said, "this looks like old times. Why, Calthy, I don't believe you have sold a thing since I was here last."

"If you had any eyes in your head," said Miss Calthea, severely, "you would see that I have sold a great deal. Nearly everything, in fact."

"That proves my point," said Lanigan; "for nearly everything was gone when I left."

"And some of the things that are gone," said she, "you still owe me for."

"Well put, Calthy," said Lanigan, laughing; "and after that, let's drop the business. What's new and what's stale in Lethbury?"

"You are about the newest as well as the stalest thing here," said she.

Lanigan whistled. "Calthy," said he, "would you mind my smoking a cigar here! There will be no customers coming in."

"You know very well you cannot smoke here," she said; "what is the matter with you? Has that pincushion-faced child's nurse driven you from the inn?"

A pang went through Lanigan. Was Calthea jealous of Miss Mayberry on his account? The thought frightened him. If he could have said anything which would have convinced Calthea that he was on the point of marrying Miss Mayberry, and that therefore she might as well consider everything at an end between herself and him, he would have said it. But he merely replied:

"She is a nice girl, and very much given to learning."

Now Miss Calthea could restrain herself no longer.

"Learning!" she exclaimed. "Stuff and deception! Impudent flirting is what she is fond of, as long as she can get a good-for-naught like you, or an old numskull like that Tippengray, to play her tricks on."

Now Lanigan Beam braced himself for action. This sort of thing would not do; whatever she might say or think about the rest of the world, Calthea must not look with disfavor on the Greek scholar.

"Numskull!" said he. "You're off the track there, Calthy, I never knew a man with a better skull than Mr. Tippengray, and as to his being old – there is a little gray in his hair to be sure, but it's my opinion that that comes more from study than from years."

"Nonsense!" said Calthea; "I don't believe he cares a snap for study unless he can do it with some girl. I expect he has been at that all his life."

Now Lanigan's spirits rose; he saw that it was not on his account that Calthea was jealous of Ida Mayberry. His face put on an expression of serious interest, and he strove to speak impressively, but not so much so as to excite suspicion.

"Calthea," said he, "I think you are not treating Mr. Tippengray with your usual impartiality and fairness. From what I have seen of him, I am sure that the great object of his life is to teach, and when he gets a chance to do that he does it, and for the moment forgets everything else. You may be right in thinking that he prefers to teach young persons, and this is natural enough, for young people are much more likely than older ones to want to learn. Now, to prove that he doesn't care to teach young girls just because they are girls, I will tell you that I saw him, this very afternoon, hard at work teaching Mrs. Cristie and Ida Mayberry at the same time, and he looked twice as happy as when he was instructing only one of them. If there were enough people here so that he could make up a class, and could have a sort of summer school, I expect he would be the happiest man on earth.

"I am afraid that is Mr. Tippengray's fault," continued Lanigan, folding his hands in his lap and gazing reflectively at his outstretched legs. "I am afraid that he gives too much of his mind to teaching, and neglects other things. He is carried away by his love of teaching, and when he finds one person, or a dozen persons who want to learn, he neglects his best friends for that one person, or those dozen persons. He oughtn't to do it; it isn't right – but then, after all, no man is perfect, and I suppose the easiest way for us to get along is to stop looking for perfection."

Miss Calthea made no answer. She gazed out of the window as if she was mildly impressed with a solicitude for the welfare of her garden. There flitted into her mind a wavering, indeterminate sort of notion that perhaps Lanigan was a better fellow than he used to be, and that if she should succeed in her great purpose it might not be necessary that he should go away. But still, – and here prudence stepped in front of kindliness, – if that child's nurse remained in the neighborhood, it would be safer if Lanigan kept up his interest in her; and if she ultimately carried him off, that was his affair.

Leaning forward, Miss Calthea took a match from a box on a shelf, and handed it to Lanigan.

"You may as well smoke if you want to," she said; "it's not likely any one will be coming in, and I don't object when the window is open."

Gratefully Lanigan lighted his cigar.

"Calthy, this is truly like old times," he said. "And to finish up with Tippengray, I'll say that if Lodloe and I had not our mind so filled with our own businesses and projects, I'd get him to go in with me, and help make up a class; but if I were to do that, perhaps people might say that all I wanted was to get in with the girls."

Here was a chance for Calthea to give her schemes a little push.

"There is only one girl," she said, "who would be likely to take part in that sort of thing, and that is the child's nurse at the Squirrel Inn; but if she really is given to study, I suppose she might help you to improve your mind, and if you are what you used to be, it will stand a good deal of improving."

"That's so, Calthy," said Lanigan; "that's so." He was in high good humor at the turn the conversation had taken, but did his best to repress his inclination to show it. "It might be well to go in for improvement. I'll do that, anyway." Lanigan blew out a long whiff of purple smoke. "Calthy is a deep one," he said to himself; "she wants me to draw off that girl from the old man. But all right, my lady; you tackle him and I will tackle her. That suits me beautifully."

At this moment Lodloe entered the shop, and Miss Calthea Rose greeted him with much graciousness.

"You must have taken a short walk," said Lanigan. "Don't you want to wait until I finish my cigar? It's so much pleasanter to smoke here than in the open air. Perhaps Miss Calthea will let you join me."

Lodloe was perfectly willing to wait, but did not wish to smoke. He was interested in what he had heard of the stock of goods which was being sold off about as fast as a glacier moves, and was glad to have the opportunity to look about him.

"Do you know, Calthy," said Lanigan, "that you ought to sell Mr. Lodloe a bill of goods?" He said this partly because of his own love of teasing, but partly in earnest. To help Calthea sell off her stock was an important feature of his project.

"Mr. Lodloe shall not buy a thing," said Calthea Rose. "If he is ever in want of anything, and stops in here to see if I have it in stock, I shall be glad to sell it to him if it is here, for I am still in business; but I know very well that Mr. Lodloe came in now as an acquaintance and not as a customer."

"Beg your pardons, both of you," cried Lanigan, springing to his feet, and throwing the end of his cigar out of the window; "but I say, Calthy, have you any of that fire-blaze calico with the rocket sparks that's been on hand ever since I can remember?"

"Your memory is pretty short sometimes," said Calthea, "but I think I know the goods you mean, and I have seven yards of it left. Why do you ask about it?"

"I want to see it," said Lanigan. "There it is on that shelf; it's the same-sized parcel that it used to be. Would you mind handing it down to me?"

Lanigan unrolled the calico upon the counter, and gazed upon it with delight. "Isn't that glorious!" he cried to Lodloe; "isn't that like a town on fire! By George! Calthea, I will take the whole seven yards."

"Now, Lanigan," said Miss Calthea, "you know you haven't the least use in the world for this calico."

"I know nothing of the sort," said Lanigan; "I have a use for it. I want to make Mrs. Petter a present, and I have been thinking of a fire-screen, and this is just the thing for it. I'll build the frame myself, and I'll nail on this calico, front and back the same. It'll want a piece of binding, or gimp, tacked around the edges. Have you any binding, or gimp, Calthy, that would suit?"

Miss Calthea laughed. "You'd better wait until you are ready for it," she said, "and then come and see."

"Anyway, I want the calico," said he. "Please put it aside for me, and I'll come in to-morrow and settle for it. And now it seems to me that if we want any supper we had better be getting back to the inn."

"It's not a bad idea," said Miss Calthea Rose, when she was left to herself; "but it shall not be in a class. No, indeed! I will take good care that it shall not be in a class."

XVII

BANANAS AND OATS

When Walter Lodloe walked to Lethbury because he could not talk to Mrs. Cristie, it could not have been reasonably supposed that his walk would have had more practical influence on his feelings towards that lady than a conversation with her would have had; but such was the case.

It would have been very pleasant to talk, or walk, or chat, or stroll, or play tennis, with her, but when he reached the quiet little village, and wandered by himself along the shaded streets, and looked into the pretty yards and gardens, on the profusion of old-fashioned flowers and the cool green grass under the trees, and here and there a stone well-curb with a great sweep and an oaken bucket, and the air of quaint comfort which seemed to invade the interiors of those houses that were partly opened to his view, it struck him, as no idea of the sort had ever struck him before, what a charming and all-satisfying thing it would be to marry Mrs. Cristie and live in Lethbury in one of these cool, quaint houses with the quiet and shade and the flowers – at least for a few years until his fortunes should improve.

He had a notion that Mrs. Cristie would like that sort of thing. She seemed so fond of country life. He would write and she would help him. He would work in the vegetable garden, and she among the flowers. It would be Arcadia, and it would be cheap. Even with his present income every rural want could be satisfied.

An infusion of feasibility – or what he looked upon as such – into the sentimentality of such a man as Walter Lodloe generally acts as a stiffener to his purposes. He was no more in love with Mrs. Cristie than he had been when he left the Squirrel Inn, but he now determined, if he saw any reason to suppose that she would accept them, to offer himself and a Lethbury cottage to Mrs. Cristie.

He had a good opportunity to think over this matter and come to decisions, for his companion walked half the way home without saying a word.

Suddenly Lanigan spoke.

"Do you know," said he, "that I have about made up my mind to marry the governess?"

"She isn't a governess," said Lodloe; "she is a nurse-maid."

"I prefer to invest her with a higher grade," said Lanigan; "and it is pretty much the same thing, after all. Anyway, I want to marry her, and I believe I can do it if nobody steps in to interfere."

"Who do you suppose would do that?" asked Lodloe.

"Well," said Lanigan, "if the Lethbury people knew about it, and had a chance, every man jack of them, and every woman jack, too, would interfere, and under ordinary circumstances Calthea Rose would take the lead; but just now I think she intends to lend me a hand – not for my good, but for her own. If she does that, I am not afraid of all Lethbury and the Petters besides. The only person I am afraid of is Mrs. Cristie."

"Why do you fear her?" asked Lodloe.

"Well," said Lanigan, "when she was at the inn some years ago I was at my wildest, and her husband did not like me. He was in bad health, very touchy, and I suppose I gave him reason enough to consider me an extremely black sheep. Of course Mrs. Cristie naturally thought pretty much as he did, and from what you told me of the conference over my advent, I suppose her opinions haven't changed much. She has treated me very well since I have been here, but I have no doubt that she would consider it her duty to let Miss Mayberry know just the sort of fellow she thinks I am."

"Of course she would do that," said Lodloe; "and she ought to do it."

"No, sir," said Lanigan; "you are wrong, and I am going to prove it to you, and you shall see that I trust you as if I had known you years instead of days. I want you to understand that I am not the same sort of fellow that I used to be, not by any means. I told old Petter that, so that he might have a little practice in treating me with respect, but I didn't give him any reasons for it, because Calthea Rose would be sure to suspect that he knew something, and she'd worm it out of him; but I don't believe she could worm anything out of you. When I left this place some eighteen months ago I went down to Central America and bought a banana farm, paying very little money down. In less than three months I sold my land to a company, and made a very good thing out of it. Then, thinking the company after a while might want more land, I bought another large tract, and before the end of the year I sold that to them, doubling my money. Then I left the tropics, fearing I might go too deep into that sort of speculation and lose every cent I had. I traveled around, and at last landed in Chicago, and here the money-making fever seized me again. It is a new thing to me, and a lot more intoxicating, I can tell you. I invested in oats, and before I knew it that blessed grain went up until, if its stalks had been as high as its price, it would have been over my head. I sold out, and then I said to myself: 'Now, Lanigan, my boy, if you don't want to be a beastly pauper for the rest of your life, you had better go home.' Honestly, I was frightened, and it seemed to me I should never be safe until I was back in Lethbury. Look here," he said, taking from a pocket a wallet filled with a mass of papers and a bank-book; "look at those certificates, and here is my New York bank-book, so you can see that I am not telling you lies.

"Now you may say that the fact of my having money doesn't prove that I am any better than I used to be, but if you think that, you are wrong. There is no better way to reform a fellow than to give him something to take care of and take an interest in. That's my case now, and all I've got I've given myself, which makes it better, of course. I'm not rich, but I've got enough to buy out any business in Lethbury. And to go into business and to live here are what will suit me better than anything else, and that's not counting in Ida Mayberry at all. To live here with her would be better luck than the biggest rise in oats the world ever saw. Now you see where I stand. If Mrs. Cristie goes against me, she does a cruel thing to me, and to Ida Mayberry besides."

"Why don't you tell her the facts?" said Lodloe. "That would be the straightforward and sensible thing to do."

"My dear boy," said Lanigan, "I cannot put the facts into the hands of a woman. No matter how noble or honorable she may be, without the least intention on her part they would leak out, and if Calthea Rose should get hold of them I should be lost. She'd drop old Tippengray like a hot potato and stick to me like one of those adhesive plasters that have holes in them. No, sir; I don't want Calthea Rose to think well of me. I want her to keep on considering me as a good-for-nothing scapegrace, and, by George! it's easy enough to make her do that. It's all in her line of business. But I want other people to think well of me in a general way, and when Calthea and Tippengray have settled things between them, and are traveling on the Continent, which they certainly ought to do, I'll start in business, and take my place as one of the leading citizens of Lethbury; and, as things look now, all will be plain sailing if Mrs. Cristie thinks well enough of me not to interfere between me and Ida Mayberry. Now all I ask of you is to say a good word for me if you can get a chance."

"After what you have told me," said Lodloe, "I think I shall say it."

"Good for you!" cried Lanigan. "And if I go to Calthy and ask her to lend me the money to get a frame made for Mrs. Petter's fire-screen, don't you be surprised. What I'm doing is just as much for her good as for mine. In this whole world there couldn't be a better match for her than old Tippengray, and she knows it, and wants him."

"If there was a society for the prevention of cruelty to Greek scholars, I don't know but that it might interfere in this case," said Lodloe.

XVIII.

SWEET PEAS

Walter Lodloe was now as much flushed with the fever of love-making as Lanigan Beam had been flushed with the fever of money-making, but he did not have the other man's luck. Mrs. Cristie gave him few opportunities of making her know him as he wished her to know him. He had sense enough to see that this was intentional, and that if he made any efforts to improve his opportunities he might drive her away.

As he sat at his tower window, his fingers in his hair and his mind trying to formulate the prudent but bold thing he ought to do, a voice came up from below. It was that of Ida Mayberry.

"Mr. Lodloe! Mr. Lodloe!" she cried; and when he had put his head out of the window she called to him:

"Don't you want to come down and help us teach Mr. Tippengray to play tennis? He has taught us so much that we are going to teach him something."

"Who are going to teach?" asked Lodloe.

"Mrs. Cristie and I," said Ida. "Will you come?"

Instantly consenting, Lodloe drew in his head, his love fever rising.

The Greek scholar was one of the worst tennis-players in the world. He knew nothing of the game, and did not appear capable of learning it. And yet when Lanigan Beam appeared, having just arrived on horseback from Romney, Mrs. Cristie would not allow the Greek scholar to give up his place to the younger man. She insisted on his finishing the game, and when it was over she declared the morning too warm to play any more.

As she and Lodloe stood together for a moment, their rackets still in their hands, Mrs. Cristie smiled, but at the same time frowned.

"It is too provoking," she said; "I wish Douglas would wake up and scream his very loudest. I was just on the point of asking Ida to go with me into the garden to pick sweet peas, when Mr. Beam hands her that horrible bunch of wild flowers, crammed full of botany, I've no doubt. And now just look at them! Before one could say a word, there they are on that bench, heads together, and pulling the weeds to pieces. Think of it! Studying botany with him, and Mr. Tippengray on the same lawn with her!"

"Oh, he's too hot to teach anything," said Lodloe. "You don't seem to approve of Mr. Beam's attentions to that young woman."

"I do not," said she. "You know what he is as well as I do."

"Better," said Lodloe. For a moment he paused, and then continued: "Mrs. Cristie, I wish you would let me go into the garden with you to pick sweet peas and to talk about Mr. Beam."

"Mr. Beam!" she repeated.

"Yes," said Lodloe; "I wish very much to speak to you in regard to him, and I cannot do it here where we may be interrupted at any moment."

As a young and pretty woman who knew her attractions, and who had made resolutions in regard to the preponderance of social intercourse in a particular direction, Mrs. Cristie hesitated before answering. But as a matron who should know all about a young man who was paying very special attention to a younger woman in her charge, she accepted the invitation, and went into the garden with Lodloe.

The sweet pea-blossoms crowded the tall vines which lined one side of a path, and as she picked them he talked to her.

He began by saying that he had noticed, and he had no doubt that she had noticed, that in all the plain talk they had heard about Mr. Beam there had been nothing said against his moral character except that he did not pay his debts nor keep his promises. To this Mrs. Cristie assented, but said that she thought these were very bad things. Lodloe agreed to this, but said he thought that when a young man of whom even professional slanderers did not say that he was cruel, or that he gambled, or drank, or was addicted to low company and pursuits, had determined to reform his careless and thoughtless life, he ought to be encouraged and helped in every possible way. And then when she asked him what reason he had to suppose that Mr. Beam had determined to reform, he straightway told her everything about Lanigan, Chicago oats and all, adding that the young man did not wish him to say anything about this matter, but he had taken it upon himself to do so because Mrs. Cristie ought to know it, and because he was sure that she would not mention it to any one. When Mrs. Cristie exclaimed at this, and said that she thought that the sooner everybody knew it the better, Lodloe told her of the state of affairs between Calthea Rose and Lanigan Beam, and why the latter did not wish his reform to be known at present.